Opinons need about this potential upgrade

[Broomba37]

I was browsing through Frys.com and came across this interesting and potential buy when I upgrade to the i5

FRYS.com*|*Intel

Secondly how much DDR3 Ram would anyone recommend use to multibox? 4, 6, or 8GB I will start out small or middle and gradually upgrade to max it out.

[pwnboxnub]

I love frys, and they do have some great prices on mobo/ cpu combos. They can work great, but usually the mobo is limited and is not intended for gaming. The important details are first the amount of Ram slots, this only has two. A good gaming board would have 6+, secondly, overclocking is limited with this board (I believe, check on this). Finally, I dont like any board that comes with onboard video, just a personal preference, its always a nice fall back incase you fry out your video card, but if you are a gamer, you wouldn't be able to play until you got a new video card or two anyway.

I would suggest to go with an i7 920 minimum, with a board you can overclock. you will spend about twice as much, but the performance increase will be incredible. That said, it all depends on your budget, and if you have a plan on constantly upgrading and spending more money on your rig in the future.

Your ram question: I would start with 4, only because you stated you plan on starting in the middle. 6 isnt really a viable option, on this board as it only has two slots. So, I defintely recommend to not go w/ this board. Sometimes fry's will let you substitute boards by adding in the difference of the higher priced board. Definitly go w/ a board that has a minimum of 4 ram slots, 6 are preferred. I like EVGA for gaming, but there are other great ones out there.

FRYS.com*|*Intel

FRYS.com*|*Intel

FRYS.com*|*Intel

those are all sub $500 combos, keep in mind that i fyou are overclocking, you need to budget for watercooling, or a very nice heatsink.

[Broomba37]

I was looking into the second link and option you posted.

[Tim]

That second link is about $100 cheaper than what Newegg lists. Seems like a great deal! Make sure nothing is refurbished/used, seems too good to be true.