motherboard and memory question

[Marine Sniper15]

Hey guys, im in the process of building a desktop and have a question about the motherboard and memory I chose. Would these two be a good combination?
Memory:
Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM - Desktop Memory
Motherboard:
Newegg.com - ASUS P5P43TD LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

[Adrian Ţepeş]

The memory is good, but if you're looking for a gaming rig, you might want to consider something along the lines of a board that supports the i5/i7 socket. Or are you just looking for a standard desktop to do all your regular stuff on?

[Marine Sniper15]

Yea im looking for it to be more gaming oriented. I dont need any super high perfomance, but I would like decent performance. Oh and here is the CPU I currently have picked out.
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

[kow_ciller]

For those prices look at AMD or an i5 rig.

[Adrian Ţepeş]

This is what I've got, it will serve you well

Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 940 Quad-Core (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz

Memory: G.Skill 4GB RAM DDR2 1066 mhz

Hard Drive: Seagate 500 GB

Video Card: msi ATI Radeon HD 4890 OC

Motherboard: Foxconn ATX AMD A7DA-S

And for a great price

Case: Antec 900 AGC, but a 300 will do just as well.

[Marine Sniper15]

Im kinda leaning toward intel for the CPU. And as for the video card Im gonna go with Nvidia. Do you think those prices are too expensive?

[Adrian Ţepeş]

Yeah, kinda, since the newer 5800 series Ati cards smoke all the current Nvidia cards. But you can get great graphics and performance with a previous-generation Ati card, like the 4890, for a great price. If you're leaning toward Intel, I'd recommend this board here:

Newegg.com - Foxconn Inferno Katana LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

and this CPU:

Intel Core i5 750 Processor - 2.66GHz, LGA 1156, 8MB L3 Cache, Quad-Core, Lynnfield, Retail at TigerDirect.com

[Mr. Pedantic]

Why absolutely Intel and NVidia? You should definitely get a quad-core, and given the way Intel is going with its hundred different sockets, I think AMD would be a logical choice in terms of CPU. In terms of GPU, NVidia is almost flat-out the wrong choice. Unless you are folding or NVidia prices are way, way below normal where you are, there is almost no way I would recommend an NVidia GPU at the moment.

I would stick with the RAM you have now, and go with this:

Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2
Core i5 750

It costs a little more than the mobo+E8400 you were planning to buy, but in my opinion the extra money is more than worth it.

[Adrian Ţepeş]

Definitely. Your mobo out-priced mine by over $70

[Mr. Pedantic]

Yeah, that might be because it's uATX. For a full ATX motherboard, probably this one or this one. I wouldn't go with an $180 P55 mobo - the point of Core i5 is performance on a budget, and at that price range it's getting too expensive to justify staying with i5; much better in that case to go with i7 + cheaper mobo, get Hyperthreading, which will most likely have a greater impact on performance than that extra little bit of overclocking stability or features.