LOL, the Frostytech rankings have no credibillity. I'm sorry, but there is no way that a device with no heatpipes, and a low thermal threshold is going to be one of the quietest heatsinks. Nor is it going to cool very well either.
Empirical data is useless isn't it?
Motherboards matter a lot for what you can do in the future. Your example of PCIe 2.0 is a good one. But things like ease of layout, ease of use, abillity to tweak things, stabillity, voltage regulation, cooling, ports, slots etc. ALL come into play. A motherboard doesn't have much of a role in performance, and people are well aware of that, but there is more to it than just performance. And I would disagree with you saying SLI/XFIRE is pointless. Xfire especially. You have the abillity to XF different cards together, etc.
SLI/Xfire all use two cards. That means more power is used, generally requiring a beast of a PSU, and an extra cost for using two. The benefit you get from dual graphics is pointless, since a single more powerful card will probably be cheaper, and be faster. For those wanting to buy a budget/expensive card, then get another one to dual later, good luck finding said card. If there is no better card (4870x2), and you really want that sp33d, sure, it's an option, but who has $2000 they want to spend on a computer whose equivalent could be bought for $500 in a year? People who know the fuck what they're doing, that's who.
I do agree with your layout etc..., but again, that's something I mentioned already, even though it was inferred.
Buy one that has stuff that you want on it
Your statistics project is kind of flawed anyway. 3DMark 05 is inherently strongly CPU reliant, so of course it's going to have a large affect. Besides, it's been proven that most games now get a lot more FPS from a better video card, in comparison to getting a better CPU. If you're short on money and want more FPS, you splurge your money on a GPU, not a CPU. So yeah, I disagree with your CPU claim.
It's a 3D rendering... it renders just like a game. My statistics project isn't a very good comparison here, but what I found out was that overclocking the CPU had the most effect. I didn't switch out any component, just changed the clock speed. I got virtually no change for the graphics card, but got a significant change in the CPU, and from that I assume that the CPU has the most effect. Now, my CPU might have been bottlenecking my graphics card, but I doubt it, since changes in the GPU were still visible, and predictable.
My point is that if you're short on money, splurge on a CPU, or better yet, balance the two out. It's called the central processing unit for a reason.
Overclocking isn't pointless, really. I get more performance for less. It's more heat, but it's still not enough to make the computer any louder, and it runs pretty cool anyway with my aftermarket cooler.
On a brand new computer, I consider overclocking to be pointless. Can you tell the difference between a processor at 2.5 GHz and 3.0 GHz? Can you tell the difference between 80 fps and 125 fps? Is that difference noticeable enough so that you have to overclock? For me, it's no. My processor at 1.8 GHz is about the same as 2.6 GHz, unless I play Oblivion. Lucky for me, Doom only listed some source games, which are based on a really easy engine. If you want to play crysis, sure, you'll probably want to overclock.
Anyone can tell the difference between 20 fps and 25 fps, and if your overclocking will really give you a 25% increase in
performance, go right ahead, it's worth it then, unless the action is so ridiculously fast that it doesn't matter. Safari is the fastest browser on the web (except when viewing images), but firefox and IE still are used more because the difference in speeds is so small that it doesn't matter, and the convenience of the two make up for the "slowness". When you get down into the 10% increases is when it's pointless. 20 fps vs 22 fps. 60 vs 66 fps. 2 minutes vs 2 minutes 12 seconds. I know my math's backwards, but the point remains.
A final note: I drive the speed limit. Maybe that will help explain some of my thinking.
"Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman - do we have to call the Gentleman a gentleman if he's not one?"