Thinking of an Intel system..

[seithon]

So I've been a bit of a AMD fan mostly because of the low price point, but lately I've been thinking I want to put a better system together.
Right now I have a slightly Flakey
A8NSLI with an Opteron 175 and 2 GB of ram...

I'm thinking of getting either an X38 or the upcoming X45(?) chipset and was wondering what the best CPU i can get for it without killing myself on price..
And also what would be the best ram i could get to go with it...
Overall I dont want to spend TO much cash but i'll take the recomendations you guys have

 

[Menelmarar]

Why X38?
I'd just get P35.

 

[seithon]

well okay i'm kinda clueless about intels.. not had one in well years

 

[BoostFrenzy]

I went from a very aging AthlonXP 2400@2400mhz, 1gb of pc3200, 200gb PATA HD, Geforce 6600GT AGP, winxpsp2 to:

-Coolermaster CM690 chassis
-Intel E6420 Core 2 Duo @ 3.2ghz (borrowing until Q9450 comes out)
-G.Skill 2x1gb DDR2-800 memory
-Abit IP35 motherboard
-Western Digital WD7500AAKS HD
-BFG 8800GT OC @ 700/1000/1750
-LiteOn 20x dvd burner / AOpen dvd rom reader
-Antec Trio 550w PSU
-Vista Business 32bit

All I can say is *WOW*, not only the SILENCE of the rig, but the obvious performance... and it cost me like ~900$ after the rebates, I couldn't be happier... also just took some power consumption readings from a killawatt:

IDLE w/ C1E/Halt enabled (runs 2400mhz instead of 3200 at idle): 115w
FULL LOAD with prime95 multithreaded and 2 instances of CPU BURN: 190w
FULL LOAD above + ATitool artifact test: 250w

Avg consumption while gaming ~190-200w, my old athlon rig idled around 190w and way WAYYYYY louder... Intel gets it done

Don't go waiting for chipsets etc, ddr2 is dirt cheap and P35 is still king for now

 

[seithon]

Interesting thanks
I'll look into it