You can overclock that cpu to 3.6ghz without even touching the voltages on my mobo and I think most x58's can do this.This is what I've been doing, I got my cpu to 3.9ghz but that requires a quite some voltage increase and changing a lot of values, so now that I dont need that much speed I went back to 3.6ghz with everything on stock.

Go for the X58 from gigabyte awsome motherboard.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=2957#ov

What do you have now for hardware? Type ram etc. If you have ddr2 then go with a socket am2+ amd mobo. Dont let people BS you about DDR3 vs DDR2 the improvments are minimal. I would rather have 4 gigs of DDR2 than 2gigs of DDR3.

Lots of parts can be used in a new system saving you cash. AMD system much cheaper and run CoD just fine. If you have lots of cash to throw away go intel and get only slightly better performance.

Hey, what I have and I suggest is a rather expensive option BUT it will last you a very very long time and is upgradeble. I have a 4-way EVGA Classified x58 ATX mobo, I would suggest going for the 3-way sli though. If you are in to tech at all or think you will in the future, this board is awesome because you can OC super easy, has lots of room for additions, easy (comparably) to trouble shoot because it has a LED panel on it which if there is a problem, will give you a number corresponding to what is wrong. In addition you can turn parts of the board on or off, so if I have a memory problem or a gpu problem I can turn off the specific port/piece and by repeating this I can find the failed hardware (otherwise you would have to manually remove each piece and replace it by hand to trouble shoot). Also it has a lifetime warranty :)

Yes and no. Problem is DDR3 ram wont seem any faster if you have a crap harddrive which is needing to be paged and therefore bottlenecking the ram. If you get DDR2 prepare to upgrade in the next year because cpu clocks have begun to climb again and the new cpu's are 32nm which means you get a bigger benefit from high clocks.

Wonder why you've chosen x58? You don't plan to put a faster CPU in your system in the future? Is it a system that'll be discarded?

X58 Sabertooth from ASUS.

5 year warranty, PLENTY of overclocking options, USB 3 and SATA 6GB support. Only $190 at NewEgg right now. Great board. I paired it with an i7 950 that I run at 4GHz comfortably on air with a $40 CPU cooler.

great input!
 

First, thank you all for the additional replies. Much appreciated.

JAMF, I chose the X58 some months ago when I purchased a (then) new i7-920 processor. It's been my misfortune since then to put everything else on hold (again!!) for personal reasons (medical + $$ for the bills). Only now do I see light at the end of a very long tunnel. As luck would have it, just to share, I just had tissue samples taken from my lungs yesterday, and am awaiting biopsy results. Meanwhile, I dream of the day I can return to the virtual skies. My processor sits on a shelf while I get my health together.
Flyby out
PS, let me add that this forum has helped sustain my appreciation for IL2. I actually have IL2-1946, but have never had a gaming system to load it on (as mine crashed before it came out). I had bought all earlier versions concluding with Forgotten Battles and really got into online play with full-real settings. I also have Rise of Flight and Wings of Prey. Might as well support the genre, eh? ;)

Might as well ask about speedy hard drives. I don't think SSDs help gaming from waht I've read on the DCS forums. Can someone speak to a HDD that is SATA 6 rated? For gaming, is a smaller HDD better than a humongus (1TB) Hdd for accessing data? Or is the amopunt of cache ram more inmportant? Or both?

Yes exactly. SSD's are the way of the future, and there are even a few SATA III versions floating around the market right now. I believe Crutial has a 64gb version out now for about $125 on Newegg. Is it necessary? Probably not really for gaming, but it will let you take advantage of all the fast and extremely cheap DDR3 RAM out there now days. I plan on investing in one when I upgrade my videocard/PSU here in a couple months.

As far as the Mobo goes, I've always had good luck with MSI products. Gigabyte also is very good. Very good price/performance and good reliability from what I've heard. And the x58 chipset should be pretty good for awhile yet. But once the H67/P67 chipsets get fixed, then that'll be the way to go for graphical performance. The Sandy Bridge processors are going to be awesome!! Be sure! I might even hold out for the Ivy Bridge series though...

Another something crazy to look forward to in the future:
http://www.techspot.com/news/41818-s...efficient.html

SSD instead of HDD will likely only lower your load times. It will have almost ZERO effect on your FPS.