I would suggest a better question is E6750 or Q6600... I don't think the E6850 is worth the price difference over the E6750, but the Q6600 might be... and the answer depends on what you want to do with it and what your budget is... If you do lots of video editing/encoding, definitely go quad. If you have a tight budget and just word process, surf and do some gaming and you're thinking E6750 with 8800GTS or Q6600 with 8600GTS, then go with the E6750/8800GTS option. As most people agree, current games don't require quad core, but more new games will benefit from it... Just don't sacrifice GPU to get it.

If you can be sure to get the G0 stepping Q6600, it looks even better as it runs cooler (thanB3 stepping)and overclocks well and will set you up better for the future.

A good PSU at a great price is the Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 for $100 - $45 Mail-in Rebate and free shipping.

I would also suggest GeIL 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 SDRAM (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit for $85 - $30 Mail-in Rebate.

For $20, you could alsoget ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro to help with overclocking/stability.

A good PSU at a great price is the Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 for $100 - $45 Mail-in Rebate. That will handle your system just finewith a single 8800GTS.

Best sites in Canada are

http://www.ncix.com/ is good, cause they price match any advertised Canadian price... Their weekly advertised deals are great and since they are in BC, there is no PST to other provinces like Ontario - so I usually save more in tax than I pay in shipping.You can probably go in to get your parts and save the shipping.

http://www.directcanada.com/ is also good (most prices slightly better than NCIX)and has free shipping on orders over $300 (also in BC)

I also usehttp://www.anitec.ca/(also in BC), and for local pickup (for me near Toronto)http://www.canadacomputers.com/, http://www.pcvonline.com/ and sometimes http://www.tigerdirect.ca/ (usually high prices before rebates) for parts... all can be price matched at NCIX.

For choice of parts, I suggest you give a budget and let us know what you want to use it for. Do you have a monitor/keyboard/mouse, etc. and what resolution you plan to game at. We can suggest some good parts based on that.

Oh, and under the specs of this PSU i`m getting it specifically says it supports an 8800GTS in SLi...why I dont know...but thats what I want. Thanks.jfkunrendered

I would recommend the GameXStream 700W over the Rosewill 750W. It provides clean stable power, puts out more power on the 12V rails, has 3 year warranty and is certified by nVidia for 2 x 8800GTS in SLI. Much better for the extra $25. No Rosewill PSUs are certified for dual 8800GTS by nVidia. Check: http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html

A good PSU at a great price is the Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 for $100 - $45 Mail-in Rebate.

I would also suggest GeIL 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 SDRAM (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit for $85 - $30 Mail-in Rebate

That's $47 more up front, but $28 less after you get the rebates and you get better parts.

If you want something to spendan extra $20 on, you could get ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro to help with overclocking.

Hey thanks for the reply! I have a battle within me to go dual or quad and vista or xp. It's tough! I'm thinking in staying dual for now but maybe later qet a better quad, I'm trying to reach my $1500 budget!

mario7djpr

You could save a bit more if you shop around... I put together a similar list from NCIX with some minor differences (Corsair 620 instead of 520, LG/WD/OCZ/BFG instead of LiteOn/Seagate/Crucial/EVGA)

Price Part # Description

$130.72 24650 Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R ATX LGA775 Conroe P35 DDR2 1PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 SATA RAID Sound GBLAN Motherboard

$274.08 22211 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor LGA775 Kentsfield 2.40GHZ 1066FSB 8MB Retail Box
Limit to 20 per customer.

$100.50 21123 Antec Nine Hundred Mid Tower Gamer Case 900 ATX 9 Drive Bay No PS Top USB2.0 1394 Audio

$506.01 22315 BFG GeForce 8800GTX OC 600MHZ 768MB 1.8GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV Out HDCP DIRECTX10 Video Card

Add to cart as options with BFG card to get sale prices

$0.00 19612 Dark Messiah of Might And Magic (PC)

$93.26 22437 Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 32BIT DVD OEMNCIX Special Offers

$95.87 19337 OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-15 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit
-$40 Mail-in Rebate

$142.74 19831 Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX Triple 12V 50A 24PIN ATX Modular Power Supply 120MM Fan 2X PCI-E
-$30 Mail-in Rebate
Limit to 1 per customer.

$34.96 24533 LG GSA-H62L Black SATA DVD+RW 18X8X16 DVD-RW 18X6X16 DL 10X Lightscribe OEM DVD Writer W/ SW

$79.13 22979 Western Digital SE16 320GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB 8.9MS Hard Drive OEM 3 Year MFR Warranty

$22.24 17225 Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro LGA775 2500RPM 45CFM

Subtotal $1,479.51

- $70 Mail-in Rebates

Just over $1,400 plus shipping and taxes (if applicable)

You could also save another $40 if you go with Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L instead of GA-P35-DS3R... assuming you don't need RAID or more than 4 SATA drives.

[QUOTE="RayvinAzn"]

The Freezer 7 Pro didn't impress me much in terms of cooling performance. It's mighty quiet and admittedly more efficient than the stock cooler, and for the price it's definitely a good deal - but if you're seriously considering overclocking a quad-core processor, something a little higher up the food chain might be in order.

mario7djpr

I'm thinking about having something to upgrade in the future and never thought about overclocking but you guys give me ideas so I'm still thinking about it.

The Freezer 7 Pro is the best you can get for about $20... If you plan to do extreme overclocking, you can spend $50 - $250+ on CPU cooling... but if you are gonna spendtoo much on cooling, you might as well get a better processor.

If you get the Q6600 with G0 stepping, you should be able to easilygo up to QX6850 speed (or faster) on stock cooling... The Freezer 7 Pro just makes that a little safer/cooler/quieter for $20.

You should get a new video card instead, if this is for gaming.. an X2 6400+ would not increase gaming performance much over an X2 3800+ @ 2.3GHz.

The Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 should do, or the Zalman CNPS 9500 AM2 if you're willing to spend a bit more.

Hiryuu_

Yeah, the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro is the best bang for the buck cooler.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185125