Need help choosing chipset/cpu combo

[number58]

I am in the process of buying parts for a new pc. I want the motherboard to last as long as possible so i can just upgrade certain parts as i need to. The last pc i built used a socket 939 amd board just as that socket died. I don't want that to happen again. Here's the answers to those sticky questions.
1.I plan on using my system for gaming and media creation. I won't be doing any extreme overclocking, but maybe a little. I'd like to run games at 1680x1050 smoothly.
Basically what i'm worried about is buying an intel board and not being able to upgrade my system after nehalem launches. But at the same time will amd be able to match intel's performance when they move to 45nm chips?

2. My budget is around $600 for a motherboard, cpu and ram. This is an estimate.

3. Buying from the U.S.

4. I'm pretty fond of asus boards. Other than that nothing.

5. I already have a pc power&cooling silencer 750, antec 900 case, western digital 640gb hard drive and samsung dvd burner.

6. yes.

7. see above.

8. I plan on building it within the next few months, depending if intel's p45 is worth waiting for. But i'm definitely not waiting for nehalem.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

CPU = Q9300
MB = your flavor of Gigabyte P35-DS3(P,R,L)
RAM = G. Skill DDR2 1000

well within your budget for a good mb/cpu/ram combo

 

[number58]

Thanks for the advice. Does Gigabyte have a solid reputation with these boards? And also will not having pci-express 2.0 hurt me in the future?

 

[DSF]

If you're upgrading soon enough that you're worried about Nethalem limiting your options, then PCI-e 2.0 isn't a concern for you. The truth is that the bandwidth of PCI-e 1.0 hasn't even been saturated yet.

Honestly though, I don't know that I'd worry too much about preparing for upgrades. At some point you'll have to update your hardware no matter what. (For example, Socket 775 motherboards that are two or three years old can't necessarily accommodate Core2Duos even though they're Socket 775.) Buy yourself a cost-effective system that fits your needs now, and put the money saved towards a new one when the time comes. There's no telling whose processors will be better in two years time. If Intel is still king then you'd have to spend money on a new motherboard if you went AMD anyway.

Unless your media creation is heavily parallel you could get an E8400, 4GB DDR2 and a P35 motherboard for $400 or less that would be fine until you want to upgrade. The other $200 can sit in the bank and be put toward the future upgrade.

 

[number58]

Alright. That makes sense. Just one more question. Does the latency of the ram or the speed affect performance more? For example, should I buy some ddr2 1066 or higher at a latency of 5 or 6, or ddr2 800 at a latency of 4? I don't really understand how latency works, I've just been told lower latency is better.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: number58
Alright. That makes sense. Just one more question. Does the latency of the ram or the speed affect performance more? For example, should I buy some ddr2 1066 or higher at a latency of 5 or 6, or ddr2 800 at a latency of 4? I don't really understand how latency works, I've just been told lower latency is better.

The truth is that neither matters very much to the general user. The performance difference from higher speed or lower latency RAM generally only shows up in system benchmarks, not in real-world use. The higher speed is really only important to people who are overclocking and want to make sure they have enough headroom.

 

[number58]

Nice. I really appreciate the advice guys.