Mac man needs help switching...

[GratefullySaved]

Hi guys,

I'm mostly a mac expert (my own definition, don't quiz me or I might fail ) that has built two pc's in the past for gaming and backup workstations, and now I want to upgrade my Athlon 1 GHz to a pretty powerful workstation for sure. I've posted a couple of questions prior to this, and now I'm convinced I want to go Athlon XP on an Nforce 2 board with DDR RAM, ....BUT I'm still torn on the whole Windows XP thing.... yes, I have hardware questions .. . . if I upgrade my 40GB drive running WIN98se to WIN XP, do I have to format the whole drive and start over once I take it out of my old computer and put it into a new case that will hold the Nforce 2/Athlon XP configuration? On a mac you can switch drives incessantly and you're good to go, but I think it's different for PC's right?

Second question: What is the cheapest and most reliable Nforce 2 mobo with built in firewire, usb, and LAN, AND can support at least 2GB or RAM? I think $128 is the lowest I've heard for the Epox (?). Main question is who has these boards in stock (Nforce 2)?

Also, how is WIN XP at handling something like 1 or 2 GB's of RAM? Anything special to know or do?

I'm not switching over to PC permanently, but I need a "Power-PC" for my ultra-large photoshop compositing work. My Titanium Powerbook is FANTASTIC, but it is bogging down on some of my larger personal work.

All help is sincerely appreciated, and just so everyone knows, I'm definitely on a budget, so I'm really trying to find the cheapest way to either sell my system and start fresh, or just swap out some components (mobo, cpu, ram) and truck on from there.

FWIW, my pc is:

Athlono 1 GHz at 1.2 on 133 Mhz bus
Abit KT7a
512 MB PC133 RAM
Soundblaster Live Value
$20 Cendyne 48x16x48 CD/RW (or something like that)
40 GB Maxtor drive ($40 bought 3 weeks ago)
100MB Zip Drive (free as a gift from friend at church)
Antec reallynicecase heavy grey metal one with healthy Enermax Power Supply (I think)

Thanks again, and I look forward to your help - I certainly need some advice here...

GS

 

[Dufman]

just a suggestion, but if you are into creating media, you should REALLY look into a P4 system, granted they are more pricey, but they are much better at creating media and the like

 

[DeviousTrap]

For the windows xp installation i suggest that you format instead of doing an upgrade because you are switching every component. Windows will not run at its full potential without a clean-install anyways. Also do consider a P4 as there is a large difference when it comes to video creation or similar becuase of it FSB.

Another thing is windows XP will handle 2GB or RAM without a problem. You will not need to do anything special except ofcourse watch everything fly with that amount of ram.

 

[magomago]

If you get a nforce2 get the Asus A7N8X Deluxe.....Dual lan, firewire, usb2.0, serialATA, its the best


and it might be better if you run windows 2000 professional


But it really depends on your budget....i prefer AMD but if you are into heavy media creation Intel might be a better route - alibet a lot pricier (which is another of the reasons I prefer AMD)