x38 + Wolfdale + DDR2 help

[Urraca]

Hey guys, this is going to be my first new build in a very long time (just look at my rig below), I'm very excited to get started, but I'm a little rusty.

It seems that the 45nm Wolfdales will be out about Jan. 20th, and I've decided to build my system around that. The 3ghz chip @ ~$186 seems like an excellent price point for me.

Anyway, the new Wolfdales run natively at 1333 mhz FSB, however, no DDR2 memory runs that 'natively'. From everything I've gathered, there is no point of using DDR3 yet, it's way too expensive and you gain very little.

The question is, do I want to go x38 then? I want to run my Wolfdale at it's native FSB, without DDR 3. I was looking at the ASUS maximus formula board with Corsair Dominator DDR2 1066 (PC 8500). Will the chip + board automatically make the ram run at 1333 speeds? Or will I have to OC to achieve that?

Also, the ASUS board is a little pricey, what would happen to the FSB of my Wolfdale if I went with ABIT IP35pro and some DDR2 800? Am I limiting my chip, and basically the only advantage I will receive is the smaller die size and less power consumption?

Also what is the inherent advantage of the X38 chipset over the p35?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks a lot.

 

[Jhalf]

"native" ram at 1333 fsb would be ddr2 667 since the 1333fsb is quad pumped the real bus speed is 333 mhz and since its ddr2 (double data rate) ddr2 667 would be fine at stock speeds.

 

[BUFF]

as jhalf said the CPU bus on Intel is quad-pumped so that 1333fsb has a true mobo bus speed of 333MHz & similarly the RAM bus is doubled (Double Data Rate).

The inherent advantages of X38 over P35 are the additional 16 PCI-E lanes allowing for dual X16 Crossfire & the fact that the 2 X16 slots of the northbridge are PCI-E 2.0 (not that there is anything that needs that yet).
On the other hand it's dearer, less mature & doesn't really have any other performance gain.