Ok now that I've got an idea of the CPU I want I need some help with MB\RAM. I just want to know if these will all play friendly with each other, and also if there's any cheaper alternatives for RAM\MB without sacrificing anything (FSB mainly) What I don't want is to spend more money, so please don't go recommending i7 cpus with a terrabyte of ram

Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L M/B, P43+ICH10, FSB 1600 $153.00
Intel ATX E8400 CORE 2 DUO /3.0GHz/6MB/1333FSB/LGA775 $245.00
Corsair TWIN2X4096-8500C5D 4GB (2x XMS2 2GB) PC-8500 (1066MHz) DDR2 5-5-5-15 $115.00

Total $513

I just dont trust corsair for ram anymore, lately I have seen a lot of it go back for RA and the RA process takes forever.

G.Skilled and Geil have been a good thing for me.

yeah corsair was cool 5 years ago
GEIL and G.Skill are the go these days
also
Gigabyte sux, go Asus.

Surprisingly enough I have found gigabyte to be okay. back when I was at Pandemic we had about 80 of them running and they got smashed load wise everyday. I think we sent...2 back out of all them. I had been with asus for a long time before that but yeah, I was surprised really.


/cue end of the world rant from hermitech :P

I actually switched my MB from ASUS to Gigabyte based on the recommendation of our tech guys at work who switched from ASUS to GB themselves

why not use AMD cpu? use phenom, rid of the intel

see $$$$

I was an AMD fan for many years, but i'm glad to be back on intel, intel were just more stable, even if they cost more.

$$$ was more important when i was at uni, now i work full time i can pay a bit more for the stability.

Do Gigabyte boards have something like ASUS's Q-Connector yet? Makes hooking up the front panel of your case so f***ing easy.

I just dont trust corsair for ram anymore

2nd'd

Also, Your better off with the Gigabyte MB at the moment. Then you can install iATKOS 5.1 with out any hassles :)

I bought Crucial ram, and RA'd it directly to them - service was great. Apart from paying $11 for shipping there.

There's no SSD !

How about

Gigabyte GA-EP45T-UD3LR P45+ICH10 FSB1600 DDR3 SATA2 GbN RAID ATX $172

and

GSkill 4G(2x2G) DDR3 1333 PC10666 (F3-10666CL9D-4GBNQ) $99

or

Geil 4G(2x2G) DDR3 1333 PC10666 CL9 $99


RUSTA

4GB Kit(2x2G)DDR2 1066 Kingston - $91

With the money you save on the RAM you can upgrade to a E8500 ($272).