Some questions if you don't mind....

I mainly play games, I'm not interested in video editing, so, would I be better off with say a Athlon X2 3800+ or a Pentium D 940?

SLi, I know it's basically using 2 Graphics Cards as one, so the boards have 2 slots, do both have to be filled, or can you just use 1? And if you use 2, do they have to be the same cards?

SATA, can I plug an IDE HDD into it? Or does it have to be a SATA one? I know it'll be slower, but I have some good HDD's here, just in IDE format and looking to save money.

I think thats it so far....

X2 3800 is better for games

SLI you can use just one card one slot

SATA is just for SATA but many motherboards have spare IDE connections too.

Some questions if you don't mind....

I mainly play games' date=' I'm not interested in video editing, so, would I be better off with say a Athlon X2 3800+ or a Pentium D 940?

SLi, I know it's basically using 2 Graphics Cards as one, so the boards have 2 slots, do both have to be filled, or can you just use 1? And if you use 2, do they have to be the same cards?

SATA, can I plug an IDE HDD into it? Or does it have to be a SATA one? I know it'll be slower, but I have some good HDD's here, just in IDE format and looking to save money.

I think thats it so far.... [/quote']

As above; you can use only one card in an SLI motherboard but if you want to add a second you have to add exactly the same one.

All motherboards (whether or not they have a built-in SATA controller) seem to have 2x IDE sockets, allowing you to plug in two cables each one having 2x plugs allowing you to use a maximum of four IDE devices in your PC. Sometimes you can problems if you put a HDD and an optical drive on the same cable though.

On the CPU front I would say neither, get a core duo and save yourself the power bill. I saw engineering samples and they are indeed impressive.

SLI can use 1 or 2 cards, but if using two they have to match.

SATA, most new SATA mobo's have a single IDE connector ( and sometimes a second for compact flash only).

The newer ICH8 southbridges don't IIRC actually support IDE channels at all, however you can get IDE to sata adapters to allow an IDE Hard Disk to work on a sata channel. Since it is a Point to point link this won't slow the other devices in your system down.

If your Hard disks are over a year old i would probably replace them anyway if they hold important data.

If buying the lot new then this is no contest as the previous person said Intels Conroe chips are wiping the floor in games with the best that AMD can offer.

I've not really been paying atention recently on the PC front, still runing my AMD XP3400+. Aren't the CPUs list in the first post both dual core? How does it save the power bill? two cores = more power!

Core Duo is a new core, which uses considerably less power, so even with two of them they use less power.

Eg typical thermal envelopes for P4 & AMD64 can be as high as 135W, however at present the maximum themal envelope on a dual core conroe (core 2 duo) CPU is 65W (even less for core duo as it is a laptop targeted chip).

This means the CPU is wasting less power as excess heat and so it is also using less power too.

Add to this fact that a much lower clocked conroe can out perform AMD and P4 chips and you are onto a real winner. Intel are releasing the core duo at the same price points at the older p4 models from what i have seen around, so that a lot more bang for your pound. Even if it is more you will save on the power bill and will also have a cooler PC and less noise.