Go quad hands down! I kick my ass for not doing it in the first place! Everyone in my clan with a quad core loads a hell of alot faster than I do with an E3110/8400 same ram ect. I'll be upgrading as soon as I can trust me.

yeah man hands down. load times are faster on a low end quad then a high end dual anyday.
i dont care what anyone says. i load MUCH faster with quadcore. so yes i would go with a quad if i were you. i went quadcore and i haven't looked back

So I think it's established that quad is the way to go. If only so I don't end up punching myself later for not doing it.

Now people seem to be poking towards Intel. Kind of a foreign idea for me, I can't remember the last time I've owned an intel chip.

That much better in the quad core category, are they?

100% better. no bsing you there.

You'll kick yourself later still jkjk

AMD has not impressed me since the 939 chips. there dual cores is what i put in low budget systems. anyone who wants a gaming machine gets intel, also there is much better board selection for intel currenlty

Decent advice. At least the proc. is worked out now.

The next thing I need to think about is motherboard.

I've been looking at the cheaper of the boards that support Quad core, really seems like all I need. But will going with a cheaper board bone up the capabilities of the processor all that much?

Bear in mind I am on a -somewhat- limited budget and don't need all-out balls to the wall performance.

Depends on your budget, and what board you manage to find.

If you're planning on a Q6600, one of the older P35 boards would be a decent choice, while not breaking the bank.

The only thing you'd really be sacrificing is PCIe 2.0 support, and I've yet to see anything suggesting that we're at the point where 2.0 makes any significant difference over 1.0a.

I'd suggest one of the gigabyte P35 boards, but MB doesn't look to have them in stock. The next in line would probably be the ASUS P5K/EPU, but if it was me looking at them I'd probably cough up the extra $8 and grab the gigabyte P45 board.

If you're really strapped for cash, the Asus P5K/VM is one of the best overclocking mATX boards I've seen, but it's not going to give the the same performance as a P35 or P45 board.

p5k is probably around what you want, good board for reasonable price. or p5n d

Like denty said.


If you can get your hands on a P5K-Se. You're golden. Great board. Unfortunately I sold mine dirt cheap already

But if I get rid of my P5N-T deluxe today or tomorrow ill give it to you for a great deal!

I had a P5N-D before this board & it worked mint for a cheaper board!

Sweet.

Pending the sale of some things I am selling it looks like those boards will fall within my price bracket.

I'll NEVER use an nvidia chipset again with an Intel processor. Intel + Intel is the way to go.

Yep, yep. (What the good doctor said.... ).

I suppose my expectations are a bit different from the norm with what I expect, but Nvidia's intel chipsets have been plagued with issues (both minor and major) from the 680/650 chipset up.

Let's not forget the wonderful 570/590

I had managed to forget it until you brought it up again........