Help me find a Mobo?

[Sweetchuck47]

Hello,
I am in the market for a new computer. I currently have a HP Pavilion 573 computer. When I first started my quest I thought I only wanted a MoBo. But Im pretty sure Ill be wanting a new CPU.
My needs are simple. I like to do some light gaming. Such as "Sim City 4" and some "StarfleetCommand". I may want to get a "Battlefield" type of game in the future. But "Sim City" is a little bit of a CPU and Memory hogg. It may even be a graphics hog but not in the same way as "Unreal Tournament" is.
I also want Dual Core for my Digidesign ProTools Digi-002. For those that dont know what it is...It is a Music recording apparatus that hooks up via firewire to record thru the computer. So the More memory and CPU the better.
Right Now I have a PCI USB2.0 card that has 4 USB 2.0 deals. And a PCI firewire card that has 2 firewire ports.
Im not particular to a specific type of manufacturer of MoBo's. But I would like one that has 4 memory slots.
Maybe my post is a little confused but maybe you can help me make sence of it...
Matt

 

[tomt4535]

What kind of CPU will you be using? How much do you want to spend on the whole upgrade? From a little bit of googling, you have a socket A system. Thats pretty old. It can be upgraded and given some extra life, but its probably better to just go all out and get a new system. You may or may not be able to use some of the parts from the old system in a new one, it depends on what you want to do.

 

[Sweetchuck47]

Well, Yes I would like to get away with using parts off the old system if I can. But it all depends on the price.
I guess I forgot to add that my current CPU is a single core Athalon XP 2600 with a 2.13 GhZ processor. I guess I wanted to get a Mobo/CPU combo. Just to save me the hassle of having to put them together.
I absolutley want to reuse my DVD writer and Dvd reader drives. I currently have just a regular ATA hard Drive. But I also have a Rosewill SATA+Ultra ATA Raid Controller. Which I "Think" will allow me to use my old ATA Hdd on a Newer SATA MoBO. So I want to "For Now" use my old Hdd.
I guess the reasons I want to upgrade is this...
I want dual processing...
I want PCI-Express slots instead of AGP and reg-PCI.
I also would like up to 4 slots for memory. Right now I only have 2.
Other than that I like my computer.

 

[keeleysam]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 or E6600 (Depends on your budget)
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3

 

[Sweetchuck47]

Could you please repeat that in English? Naw really. Is that the Mobo or the type of computer? And i guess I would like to stay with AMD. Thanks


OK Thats the CPU. So which MoBo would go good with that?

 

[keeleysam]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128012

 

[Roguestar]

Why stay with AMD if better price/performance is within your budget?

And get yourself the game and I'll see you on the Battlefield .

 

[tomt4535]

You would need a new processor, motherboard, memory and graphics card. You can keep the hard drive and DVD drives. The intel cpu and motherboard linked above are great. Grab 2x512mb or 2x1gb of DDR2 ram depending on your budget, and a nice graphics card, and you will be set. For light gaming, i suggest a nvidia 7600GT or 7600GS card.

 

[Sweetchuck47]

OK. Then I have another question. Right now I am running Windows XP Home. Obviously by the time I get this computer I will want to have Windows Vista. I think its Vista. And Im not sure if its even out yet. But I will want it. So Do I have to go out and buy it off the shelf? That brings up another thing I always HATED about buying my computers at Best Buy . Whenever you buy one from a place like that you can get it loaded with all this extra software. I spend most of my time after reformating getting rid of that crap. What do I do? Just slap Windows Vista on there and Virus protection and the few other programs I want or do I end up getting a package of programs like you do with BestBUY?

So far. I want to thanks the people helping me out with this. Ive learned alot already.

Edit: Roguestar. I dunno I just have always had AMD and liked it. I dont have a problem going with Intel. Did I read on this site somewhere that they are now coming out with quad processors?

 

[Sweetchuck47]

Hello?

 

[Sweetchuck47]

Does anyone have any ideas on Vista? I went to best buy and scoped out their HP computers. And I gotta tell ya. They had prices that pretty much come in line with buying all the parts myself and building it.
They had 1 computer that had I think a E6600 CPU with 2 GB memory, 400 GB Sata HDd, and what looked like 2 slots on the front for sticking Hdd's in and out without opening the case. It went for about 1000.
So i kinda calculated in my head what it would take to build the same computer by myself and it came to almost the same price. BUT I still had not considered Windows.