A q6600 at stock is plenty for a modern gaming rig...not many games utilize all of 2 let alone 4 cores as many expect they would by now. I run mine at 3.6 stable and within specs on air, the point to going with a more expensive and newer quad is more for those who want something that's the "new next best thing"...sure you might hit 3.8 or 4.0ghz...doesn't make as much of a difference as going from 2.4-3.0 does at least in terms of real world gaming results. At that point the ammount of RAM and the power and buffer of the modern GPU really kicks into play. I've tried games at stock, 3.0 and 3.6, I saw a 1-3FPS difference between stock and 3.0 AT MOST, and maybe a 1-2 at most FPS difference from 3.0 to 3.6...yet tossing in a GTX260 compared to a 9600GT was almost jaw dropping for me!
I'd say go with a cheaper q6600, 4GB of ram (2x2gb kits are popular, get 1000 or 1066 speed of planning on overclocking, less hassle in the end), even an older P35 chipset would suffice, depends on your budget and what you expect out of it. Look at my system specs actuall, q6600, 4GB of ram I got for about $90 shipped 2x2gb from newegg, GTX260, my system runs great...I really have no need to upgrade since the upgrade I wanted I just did (260).
You don't necessarily need the newest and the best, that's where some overclocking can come in handy, but even a Q6600 at stock would be sufficient for most every game out there right now, one at 3.0-3.2 should be fine for quite some time, years maybe..in the future with games being able to utilize more cores, four of them at 3.0+ would be a healthy ammount of power.
I almost went with the PI G.Skills, but got the cheaper and older 2x2GB kit with the light-blue heatsinks, it looks better in person btw, but they run great, DDR1000 @ 2.0v, 5-5-5-15, sure nothing amazing, but stable, solid, and I'd rather have more memory than faster memory for overall gaming and use, toss in x64 OS like Vista, and I have a stable and damn good gaming rig that does an excellent job.
But it all depends on what you plan to do...an x38/48 would be better if you were planning on CrossFire...I like single card/single gpu solutions myself, less power consumed, less heat created, less hassle to deal with, things just work more often than not in comparison to multi-card/gpu setups...my GTX 260 is proving to be quite the powerhouse and I have yet to OC it!
Yeah you can go for the newest DDR2, the newest and last of the 775 intel quads (are they the last? I'm assuming so...), or you can get something that fits in the budget a bit nicer, gets the job done just as well, and just flat out works. The new stuff works great, but unless you're truly hardcore and need something that newer stuff provides, you may be wasting your money. Get what you need, mix in a little of what you want for a tad better, and call it good. That's my suggestion.
