[jims69camaro]

now, if i had just posed the question, like i did before, i would've probably gotten the same answers, so i took a different tact. it got me the result i wanted. no, i am not going to buy the quad-core system. it is, in fact, a jump-to-market and does not fully utilize the environment. i am not a hard-core anything, but i would like it to run hard-core games, since i have given up trying to satisfy my games desire with a set-top. i have no knowledge of what games are out there or what machine i need, but kicking things around a little bit and poking (tongue in cheek) fun at intel showed me what i needed to know. computer shopper, which is a fairly new source to me, and probably just an intel advertisement loosely structured as a how-to magazine, showed three different build-ups in their "how to build your own system" labeled june 2008. i take everything i read with a grain of salt, though, but i do see that some of you are running some cutting edge components, a few of which were listed in the buying lists for one or more of the machines they built up for the article. i am not ready to pull the trigger just yet, but when i do it will be with an AMD x2 chip and an SLI type mobo. i have a 250GB hard drive collecting dust, so that will get utilized, as will the DVD-ROM drive i have, just to get started with. i may spring for a light-scribe do-all DVD drive, since they are basically giving them away. things are coming together...