Buying an Q6600

So I've decided, from briefly reading a few things, that I probably want to buy a quad core cpu, because I probably won't upgrade for another couple of years. I have a few questions for people who already own them.

I bought an Abit IP-35pro mobo, because that seemed like a good, easy OC board..I like to oc a little bit, and it was on sale. Good fit?

I bought 4gb of mushkin ram, this here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146731&Tpk=MUSHKIN+996587 in particular..is there any issues I'm going to run into? do you think this will get a semi decent OC?

is a corsair 520hx modular psu going to be enough to support it? I'm sure it will be, but I just don't want to screw this up, you know.. I also plan to run an 8800gt(s)..only one, but I'm sure it'll be fine. I also plan to run a raptor and 1-2 other hdd's for storage.

Is this thing 64-bit? and should I buy a 64bit OS to go with it. I'm kinda rocking win2k, which is outdated, and I think I need to upgrade..and I never wanted to budge on a new OS, but since I'm making a new system with all this new stuff..I almost feel like I'm forced to.

lastly, heatsink fan. I notice the non oem was +20$. Is it a decent one? My mind is telling me that I should probably buy an aftermarket one, but I think I've heard the stock ones are pretty decent nowadays. I have a coolermaster cm 690 case which seems kinda common, anyone have a good one that'll fit good in that case?

Lot of (dumb) questions, plz bear with me ! !!

The Abit I35-Pro should treat you well. It is a solid board.

No clue about the ram. Some people have difficulties OCing 4gigs but I can't really speak to that a whole lot.

The 520hx should be enough if you aren't running SLI or doing any major (LN2/DICE) OCing. It would probably be fine with SLI as long as you didn't have any monster overclocks too. (EDIT: Just so you know, you can't go SLI with an Intel chipset.)

Your processor is 64bit. Go 64bit if you are willing to buy Vista. I never tried XP-64bit but I've heard a ton of bad things about it. Also, if you don't go with a 64bit OS you won't be able to use all 4gigs of your ram. It'll be somewhere around 3gigs (give or take) that Windows can use. The down side is 64bit drivers can be a little shaky or completely missing when compared to their 32bit counterparts. Unless you need every bit of that 4gigs of ram (you won't for gaming/normal use) I'd stick with a 32bit OS for now.

Get an aftermarket heatsink if you want to overclock your quad much past stock. They put out a ton of heat. On the stock cooler you might be limited to something near 3-3.2ghz. On an aftermarket cooler such as the 120 extreme you should be able to hit 3.6ghz pretty easily. The 120 extreme seems to be the heatsink of choice around here but I have no clue how well it will fit in your case.

Good luck.

Thanks for the info. One othe Q I had forgotten was, is there any type of mfu # or stepping I should be trying to get that'll OC better?

I checked out the thermalright 120. Thing seems insanely huge, and looks like it takes quite a bit of work to setup that mounting stuff it comes with O_O Any other options, or do I just need to suck it up and try to learn how to do that mounting backplates stuff? heh. Thing also seems expensive, not coming with a fan or anything. I guess a lot of the high grade one's don't though, now that I'm looking around

well for the q6600 u want a G0 stepping
http://clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A1938452