Hi everyone,
I'd like to upgrade from my Athlon 64 3000, now over three years old. I haven't been following the trends recently so I'd like your input on what I should buy for $110.
My requirements are solid construction (and driver support for Vista and Ubuntu) and no unwelcome surprises in quality. Doesn't need bleeding edge overclocking caps but a good FSB is always welcome. The faster the supported RAM the better, but again, that's not the most important thing to me.
No built-in video needed, I have an 8800GT that will do me fine. SLI or crossfire not required but if they're there I'll take them. Do new boards have built-in WiFi? I can live without it if not but it would be nice to have.
Don't need RAID support, but if it's there I won't refuse it.
Intel or AMD CPU, doesn't matter. Of course I'd like a quad core or Phenom X4. A good chipset (what are the good ones these days?) is important. One with wide acceptance is more important than one that lets you push your board to the max, but nothing too vanilla.
MSI, Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, DFI are the names most familiar to me but I could go with someone else.
One or two PCI slots are needed. I'd like something that won't be out of date in a year, like my 939 board was after the new chips came out.
Those are the things I know about. If there are standards that are nice today (SATA II?) and will become more important in a year or two, I'd like to mix them into consideration.
If I can keep the price to $110 or less that would be ideal, but if ten dollars more gets me a lot that's ok too. Any and all suggestions welcome, and many thanks for your input!
I'd like to upgrade from my Athlon 64 3000, now over three years old. I haven't been following the trends recently so I'd like your input on what I should buy for $110.
My requirements are solid construction (and driver support for Vista and Ubuntu) and no unwelcome surprises in quality. Doesn't need bleeding edge overclocking caps but a good FSB is always welcome. The faster the supported RAM the better, but again, that's not the most important thing to me.
No built-in video needed, I have an 8800GT that will do me fine. SLI or crossfire not required but if they're there I'll take them. Do new boards have built-in WiFi? I can live without it if not but it would be nice to have.
Don't need RAID support, but if it's there I won't refuse it.
Intel or AMD CPU, doesn't matter. Of course I'd like a quad core or Phenom X4. A good chipset (what are the good ones these days?) is important. One with wide acceptance is more important than one that lets you push your board to the max, but nothing too vanilla.
MSI, Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, DFI are the names most familiar to me but I could go with someone else.
One or two PCI slots are needed. I'd like something that won't be out of date in a year, like my 939 board was after the new chips came out.
Those are the things I know about. If there are standards that are nice today (SATA II?) and will become more important in a year or two, I'd like to mix them into consideration.
If I can keep the price to $110 or less that would be ideal, but if ten dollars more gets me a lot that's ok too. Any and all suggestions welcome, and many thanks for your input!
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