New to Intel - What do I need to know?

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: Wingznut
Fwiw....

• I bought an Abit IS7 a couple of months ago, and I couldn't be happier.
• After owning four MSI boards in the past, I don't think I'll be rushing out anytime soon to buy another.
• I've owned six Asus boards, and loved every one of them.

Imho, get whichever Abit or Asus board (and chipset) fits your budget. You'll be happy either way.

Oh yeah, you certainly don't NEED a 550w power supply. If you get a quality 350w, you won't have a problem. (Conversely, if you get a crappy 500w, you'll probably have issues.)

I did not say he needed one I said that I was more stable. My 420 was a TurboLink by Cheming and my voltages were unstable on my 865 and 875 board but were fine on my 845PE board. The 550 took care of that. Could I have gone lower probably but I have 4 HD's all in two seperate RAID arrays, 2 optical, and 5 case fans. I would not get anything less that a quality 400W if only running 1 HD and 2 optical.

 

[han0522]

After reading over this thread and reviews I've decided on the Asus P4P800. It performs well against mobos costing $70 more. The more I read about it the more convinced I am that this mobo offers the most performance for my dollar.

Now comes the waiting. Hopefully the HL2 launch date will be announced and my upgrade will occur approximately one week before. In this way I hope to hit the lowest price. Right now I'm considering a 2.6C or 2.8C P4; might overclock, but I'm still considering that. Have people's experiences with these two cpus been good? I know in the AMD "world" the 2500+ is valued for its stability in overclocking. Is this the same for the P4 (are certain P4's "more" stable than others).

I'm leaning toward crucial ram (two 256 mb PC3200 DDR dimms) mainly because of my experience with them and their excellent warranty.

As far as video cards go, I'm going to wait and see how low the 9700 pro and the 9800 pro go. Depending on their prices, I'll choose between the two.

Homework is calling me. Thanks for all the advice!