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The E8400 Wolfdale 3.0 GHZ is an excellent balance of price and performance. I would definitely consider it a value sweet spot. It is more than enough power for the latest games, as well as any likely to come out in the next few years. For an in depth guide to the E8400 chip, I highly recommend reading this article:
Final Thoughts on the Intel E8400.
This motherboard is NOT SLI (what is SLI?) / Crossfire (what is crossfire?) compliant. If you really think you might want to use two graphics cards in the future, swap this for a more expensive motherboard that supports SLI/Crossfire. I personally do not think the significant extra cost is worth it for the modest performance gains from SLI/Crossfire.
For general tips on how to choose a motherboard, I recommend this article: Building a PC - Choosing a Motherboard
While not entirely the topic of this article, I want to take the time to make one comment about CPU installation in general: attaching the heat sink to the CPU is in my opinion the trickiest part of building your own PC. If you read the instructions (or this article) carefully and take your time, you will have no trouble. It is definitely not the step of PC assembly to be goofing off, talking on the phone, or give in to any sort of distractions. It takes less than a minute, but it is an important minute!
