Summer upgrade finalized - Opinions?

[Sovereign]

I'm upgrading my primary desktop this summer (yay!) Hence, I will be purchasing the following (unless there are significant reasons to buy something else, of course):

- Intel Q9300 Quad-Core LGA775 CPU
- XFX 780i SLI Intel Motherboard
- 2x GeIL Value Series 2x2GB DDR2-800 kits
- Acer 22" Black LCD Monitor @ 1680x1050 (finally put SLI to work!)

Total: $930 + Shipping

I'm waiting to see if the GeForce 9900 series really does hit us in July...

[Apoptosis]

I just got a Q9300 on Friday, so expect a review of it later this week!

[martini161]

I just got a Q9300 on Friday, so expect a review of it later this week!

yay, that review will probably be the deciding factor as to what i chose in my upgrade path. so just out of curiosity, do you ask manufacturers to give you things or do they just do it

[Sovereign]

HEY! Quit hijacking my thread

I've changed my memory to this because it has a rebate that makes it the same as the other memory in price, and it's OCZ...

[geokilla]

If you're upgrading in the summer, then it means nothing right now. I think new CPUs are gonna be released from both Intel and AMD in the summer. Plus DDR3 prices will drop and you'll probably want to use DDR3 RAM instead. Hardware prices will definitely drop by summer.

NCIX had 2GB OCZ DDR3 for $90 this week. Tomorrow's the last day. I'm not sure if they have any left at that price though since it was limited quantities.

[maj0r_pawnage]

can't imagine why you would buy the q9300, it has 7.5x multi, if you get lucky u can get 500fsb from top quality mobos,3.7GHz max, q6600 can even beat that

[Sovereign]

If you're upgrading in the summer, then it means nothing right now. I think new CPUs are gonna be released from both Intel and AMD in the summer. Plus DDR3 prices will drop and you'll probably want to use DDR3 RAM instead. Hardware prices will definitely drop by summer.

NCIX had 2GB OCZ DDR3 for $90 this week. Tomorrow's the last day. I'm not sure if they have any left at that price though since it was limited quantities.

Will the hideous prices of DDR3 mobos drop by then as as well? I want to have 8GB RAM; to use DDR3 (now) would cost me $550 at minimum (for DDR3-1333 w/higher latencies). To me that is very much NOT "worth it" so to speak. Neither is spending $350 on an NVIDIA 790i Ultra SLI motherboard. If I went where I would really want (maximum upgrade, best parts possible) I would go for DDR3-1600, which would cost $748 for RAM alone in the quantity I am specifying. That's almost more for just RAM than my entire upgrade that I have laid out here!

My point is, DDR3 does not yet cross the "worth it" threshold for me personally; I'd have to settle for less RAM to fit my budget. 4GB is not an option because it would fill the slots (because I would go with 4x1GB to save money), requiring me to sell it off (low resale value on first-gen parts, anyone? Original DDR2-533 isn't worth anything anymore).

[Methious]

Other than the expense of DDR3 and the Premium prices for Boards to run it I'm hearing there isn't a lot of Over Clocking headroom with DDR3. I have some Mushkin 12800 DDR3 coming to test, but if it doesn't have OC head room it won't be such a big deal for Intel with linked and unlinked mode, but with AMD FSB/HT speed and Memory speed linked it won't be good.

Then there's the timings on DDR3, pretty pathetic on a lot of kits.

I'm not against going to it when prices drop, but I'm on the fence about it's benefits and limitations.