Advice on MB upgrade

[cyberdad]

My present rig has a MSI KT3 Ultra2 main board with a AMD Athlon XP2100 1.73 GHz and I am using a Radeon 9800 video cad. I mostly play with flight sim. My wife has an old Micron with a 600 megahertz CPU that she mostly uses for e-mail and web surfing. What I am thinking of making this change: Move my present MB, CPU and the 512 megabytes memory intact to her rig, and adding a larger capacity hard drive. Then I thought about upgrading my rig with something like the Albatron KX18D Pro II and perhaps a AMD XP2600 Athlon at 2.16 GHz. (selfish huh?) I have had good experience with the MSI board, but I have not kept up, and I am sure that there may be others out there as good or better. I can't afford the latest top-of-the-line. Any advice as to what I should use? What pitfalls should I watch for?

 

[DahDee]

Originally posted by: cyberdad
Then I thought about upgrading my rig with something like the Albatron KX18D Pro II

Finally, somebody gets it right!!! You the man! I'm so happy ... *sniff* ....

 

[cyberdad]

Yeah - but you didn't answer my questions. sniff: 🙁

 

[DahDee]

Originally posted by: cyberdad
Yeah - but you didn't answer my questions. sniff: 🙁

Heh.

KX18D Pro II + "Barton" core AMD CPU (e.g.,"2500+") + 1GB PC3200 = happy cyberdad

People seem to like the 2500+ right now because it's cheap and easily/safely overclocked to 3200+ speeds. I'm using the same setup I just described and my 1.83 GHz processor is rock-solid stable at 2.343 GHz. Time for you to visit Newegg.com.

 

[pspada]

Try the FIC AU13 - it's $80 at outpost.com or Fry's. One of the best nForce2 mobo's ever, I've used a good number of them and had no problems.

 

[novice]

Or for a really inexpensive, yet fast and reliable option, take a look here. For under $50 after mail in rebate, the Shuttle AN35N Ultra 400 is unbeatable, IMO. I paid $66 shipped for mine, and still believe it was a bargain at that price. Currently running my XP1700+ T-Bred "B" at 10x200, rock solid. Unless you need firewire, SATA, RAID, or other bells and whistles, take a look at the Shuttle, a Barton XP 2500+ and some good quality PC-3200 ram, and you will be set (for about $240 or less for motherboard, CPU and 512 mb of ram, suggest 2 256 mb sticks of Buffalo with the Winbond chips so you can utilize dual channel)
Chuck