[zator]

Hi! I am new to the site, and I like what I see so far. Thanks for doing this.

I am doing my first computer build in a while, and I would like to build somewhat for the future. My computing needs aren't huge; for example, the only game I really play is Guild Wars. So I understand that just about anything I build will be overkill for what I currently need.

As I dont want to spring for an i7 build, I was looking at AMD's Deneb 940 for a processor. But then I started reading about AMD's "Dragon" platform, and thought about matching up to that, but I will be spending a bit more money on a 790GX mobo and an ATI 4800 series card.

As I have never overclocked anything before, I thought this might be a fun system to experiment on. A Dragon system would be easier to overclock as a whole, but I really want to learn as I go, so I dont necessarily want anything easy.

So, my question is, finally, if I get a less expensive AMD2+ board like a 780x board and an nVidia card like 88XX or 98XX card, will performance be adversely affected and will my noob overclocking skills be overmatched by experimentation? Is there really a difference in chipset performance?

Thanks in advance for the replies.

[Carbon]

and I would like to build somewhat for the future

You cannot do this. If you only play Guild Wars, build a computer for Guild Wars. Buying a more expensive CPU won't help you at all anyway - if you really want to make sure you can play new games that come out you'll need to invest more in your GPU.

There is nothing in "Dragon" that is specifically any better than anything else. It is marketing FUD pure and simple in order to get you to buy a specific chipset, CPU, GPU, etc.

My advice to you is to buy a 780x board that supports AM3 and put a 7750+ BE in it along with a 4850 (assuming you're not using a very high res). That would be the midrange build here.