[matm347]

Well, the AM2 socket has not shown any improvement at all as the DDR2 speeds are not what they need to be. Intel has finally gotten better, but still needed to be overclocked to over 4Ghz (which it does pretty easily) to best AMD in gaming, again, the slower DDR2 has quite a bit to do with this. And if Intel sticks with their track record, they will need probably 2 or 3 different chipsets for the new line.

But you will need DDR, not DDR2 if you go with socket 939, AM2 will support DDR2. OCZ GX is supposed to overclock really well and it comes in 2gig kits and the new heatspreaders!


I cannot see a picture of the first case, but case 2 seemed to have plenty of spots for fans, without looking inside I can't give a good answer though.

If you plan to overclock, you'll want the best cooling possible.

I would go with PSU 1, bigger is better when overclocking.

I suggest HDD 3 as it supports NCQ (native command queue) which will speed things up as long as your controller supports it.

That motherboard is quite new, it may take a few weeks to show up in stores..which would be worth the wait IMO...but any NF4 board will be comperable in performance, DFI/ASUS make good overclockers.

Like stated above, my 4400+ can only hit right under 2.7 with watercooling and still be stable. My first core is limiting me, so you may get over 2.8, but you may not. Overclocking ability has always been luck of the draw. Your air cooling will probably be your limiting factor though.