Here's a pretty good X48 Mobo.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157129

This board supports 4gb of DDR2 (1066) and 8gb of DDR3 (1600) which gives some nice flexibility; and it's fairly inexpensive.

Edit: Extra Info

aeatyes

Nice catch, I'm updating my wishlist with that board instead.

So, would you guys reccomend, now that I can go with DDR2 or DDR3, I keep the RAM sticks I picked out, or an alternative? Keep in mind, I don't want to be spending $200 on RAM, I'd prefer under $150. As a note, my CPU is 1333MHz rated, Dual core ( so 333MHz actual speed) but I'm considering OC'ing to 400Mhz real speed.

[QUOTE="TomTheSaint"]

[QUOTE="matrixian"]x16/x16 bandwidth on the pci-e slots for Crossfire. x8/x8 with P45. For a single video card, P45 is fine.matrixian

Also, do you happen to know what kind of real performance impact that would have on the GPUs to be limited to 8x?

Intel P45 Vs. X48 Crossfire Performance from Tweaktown.

Thanks again; that was very helpful.

x16/x16 bandwidth on the pci-e slots for Crossfire. x8/x8 with P45. For a single video card, P45 is fine.matrixian

Also, do you happen to know what kind of real performance impact that would have on the GPUs to be limited to 8x?

Why spend all that money and not get 4GB of RAM?

If you can't afford 4GB of DDR3 then down your motherboard to a DDR2 one and get 4GB. You won't need DDR-3 until long after your motherboard's CPU socket is obsolete.

WDT-BlackKat

I actually focused more on finding some DDR3 with low timings (most of the stuff on Newegg seemed to be 9-9-9-24 but the stuff I found was 7-7-7-18 ) and I figured that the difference from 2 to 4 gigs wouldn't be the bottleneck in my system so I might as well wait until the manufacturing process gets better and upgrade later to 4 gigs of faster RAM.

x16/x16 bandwidth on the pci-e slots for Crossfire. x8/x8 with P45. For a single video card, P45 is fine.matrixian

Thanks

Unless you have many optical and hard drives, a mid tower case is good enough.

If Crossfire is in your plans, you should buy an X48 motherboard.

By the time nehalem becomes mainstream, ddr3 will be cheaper and have better specs. And it's not like you're gonna throw this computer away and take the ram and put it on an X58 mobo, right ?

matrixian

the x48 is $100 more than the one i'm looking at and I don't see what advantage it offers, care to elaborate?

I prefer to build $400 computers that can still play Crysis and anything else to date.pukmok

ok, any advice on that?

I spent a large chunk of yesterday picking out parts on Newegg, thinking of a system I would potentially build in the near future. My main criteria was it be an upgradeable system which would perform well on current games and, with accessories, be under 2k. Even with heatsinks, monitor, and a nice keyboard and mouse and speakers I reached that goal, but I'm curious what you all think of the set up. I'll only post the basic specs, if you guys want more let me know:

CASE: Thermaltake Armor Series VA8003BWS Full Tower (black with blue LED Fans)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811133021

MOBO: Gigabyte GA-EP45T-DS3R Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128348

EDIT: REPLACED WITH: ASROCK X48TURBOTWINS

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157129

CPU: Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache Dual Core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115036

RAM: G.Skill 2GB (2 x 1Ghz ) DDR3 1333MHz RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231178

GPU: ASUS Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 VRAM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121258

KEY QUESTIONS:
DDR2 or DDR3 RAM?

Well now we cancelled the order from dell and best buy has an HP computer at like 1540$ with 6GB of RAM, the nVidia Geforce 9500, and the 2 hardrives formed into 1 750GB.

ghost_shelly