X2 or Pentium D

[fear before...]

I am building a gaming pc... and I want to keep the price in the 1,000-2,000 dollar range. Right now I am thinking about this setup:

mobo: Asus A8N-SLI socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD

video cards: eVGA 256-P2-N562-AX Geforce 7900GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 ( 2 cards running in SLI)

power: COOLMAX CW-650T EPS12V 650X Aluminum ATX v2.01 APFC with SLI

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+

sound card: Sound Blaster X-Fi

and a Asus PhysX p1/128mb

the only thing I am not sure about is whether or not to use the new Pentium D processor's. I already have a home computer that I use for everything including gaming ( it has a pentium 4 extreme edition and I don't have any complaints with it), but I want to build a computer for the sole purpose of gamming and of coarse I want the better processor. Thanks for any help you can give me!!!

 

[Trifid]

Niether. Intel Core 2 Duo what ever Conroe CPU is coming out on the 23rd of July. This will be a good processor.

But for your build, don't get PhysX cards yet. They are good but they have come too early. Wait a year or two before getting one. Get a Fata1ty X-Fi if gaming is the main task.

When does the 8 Series arrive? As that may not be long after Conroe.

 

[fear before...]

the intel core 2 duo sounds like a good processor to use, and I checked out the specs on it a while ago. But... how's the price gonna be, and what would be a good chipset to use with it. I am leaning toward the X2, one reason because of the Nforce 4 chipsets, I know they are good!!! I don't really know of any really good Intel mobo's either if you could point me in the right direction it would be alot of help and I'd like to check them out!!!
thank you

 

[Trifid]

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz/4M) $999
Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965 (3.73GHz/2Mx2) $999
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67GHz/4M) $530
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.40GHz/4M) $316
Intel Pentium D 960 (3.60GHz/2Mx2) $316
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.13GHz/2M) $224
Intel Pentium D 950 (3.40GHz/2Mx2) $224
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz/2M) $183
Intel Pentium D 940 (3.20GHz/2Mx2) $183
Intel Pentium D 930 (3.00GHz/2Mx2) $178
Intel Pentium D 920 (2.80GHz/2Mx2) $178
Intel Pentium D 820 (2.80GHz/1Mx2) $133
Intel Pentium D 805 (2.66GHz/1Mx2) $93

I would go for the Intel 975x chipset personally instead of the nForce 5. I am not too sure how good the nForce is on Intel. Asus make the top Intel boards, as been told. There will be a DFI lanparty at some point that may be good.

 

[fear before...]

The Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 seems like the logical choice... I would enjoy the extreme edition... but I might as well just overclock the E6700, the almost 1,000 dollar price tag isn't worth the little extra clock speed in my opinion. Thanks for the help!!!

 

[Trifid]

I personally don't think the E6700 is worth the extra % price difference of the E6600.

 

[hmammen]

X2 3800 is the best value

 

[idiotec]

If you can wait another month, I agree that waiting for core 2 duo is the way to go. IMO, the E6600 is an unbelievable value at $316. Also as mentioned, the Asus boards with a 975x chipset would definitely be a nice board. Although I am waiting to see more results of the RD600 and the NF boards for Intel this time around.

If you cannot wait until core 2 duo, I would go with an AM2 socket X2. AM2 chips do not perform better than 939 chips right now, but the upgrade path is much better (K8L).