Considering a new rig. Opinions

[Akubane]

By all means if you want the striker get it. It Is a great board if you're willing to hand out the cash for it. when I bought the p5k I thought it was SLI enabled lol. Big mistake. oh well. Good choice on the q6600.

as for monitors.. how much you looking to spend. the samsung 226bw 22" is probably the most recommended monitor around. It rocks. max res of 1680x1050. NCIX.com - Buy Samsung SyncMaster 226BW 22IN Widescreen LCD Monitor Black 1680X1050 3000:1 2MS VGA DVI-D HDCP - LS22MEWSFV/XAA In Canada.
its widescreen, youll love it. 200$ more and you can get the 24" samsung 245b NCIX.com - Buy Samsung SyncMaster 245B 24IN Widescreen Black LCD Monitor 1920X1200 3000:1 5MS VGA DVI HAS - LS24HUBCBQ/XAA In Canada. its what I have, looks great. Expensive for most peoples taste as 22" is plenty big.

 

[J9Darkwing]

Wowsers! Thank you Akubane! That 22" is bang on perfect for what I've been looking for.

 

[kobe24]

I'm really considering switching to the Q6600 now. I noticed it has a 1033 bus speed as opposed to the 1333 of the E6850 but the extra potential of the quad should really outweigh the diff. Still hanging on the striker MB though. The Abit one recommended looks good too though and is over 100 bucks cheaper.

the fsb doesnt matter i got a q6600 go steppin and my fsb is 1600 right now at 3.6ghz. so u dont have to oc much to get it to 1333.

 

[J9Darkwing]

Thanks Kobe. Glad to hear. I've only tinkered with OCing my AMD but figure I'm going to get a crash course with my new intel due to all the potential it has. I have a cold and am fixing to crash but when I get the time I'm going to look for links of OCing examples using the striker, q6600 etc.
Generally when I OC I use the generic Auto overclocking provided by Asus in the bios which only bumps it up 10%. Tips or links for more indepth OCing, specifically for the striker extreme, would be appreciated. I'll peruse this forum for threads involving OCing too.