Time to upgrade my Athlon 750 (gasp!)

[razorweb]

Hi all. Here is my story:

My current rig is an Athlon 750 on an Asus K7M running on an Enermax EG351P-VE. I have three 200GB IDE Drives. I also have a 9800se softmodded to a 9800 pro. The drives run off a promise UATA133 controller. Lately my XP installation plotzed, and reinstalling xp with so much legacy gear is frustrating as hell. After 5-6 years, I am sick and tired of installing xp on top of a controller card on top of a board that doesnt natively recognize drives over 137 gb. Also, this rig is loud as hell. Old athlons always had loud hsfs. Point is, its time for an upgrade. I think I need a new motherboard, CPU, and appropriate RAM. I will probably sell or move all the spare parts into a budget rig. I will keep my big ass Antec case.

So, with the following considerations, what do you think is the best bang for the buck?

1. This computer will go in my living room, and will be connected to my 50 inch LCD RPTV via DVI.
2. I intend to keep my 9800SE, my 3 200GB IDE (UATA100 or 133) hard drives, and my 4x IDE DVD Burner, and my logitech bluetooth wireless keyboard and optical mouse.
3. I have a 6.1 channel surround system. I would like to use 6.1 onboard sound if I can. I dont even know if motherboards these days have that option.
4. I would be willing to continue use of my promise ATA Controller card, but would like to avoid it if possible.
5. I generally do not overclock, but I like to tinker with it once in a while.
6. I would like to continue using my Enermax 330W PSU.
7. Silence is a virtue.
8. I need onboard firewire and USB.
9. I do not believe I have any need for PCI express, but maybe someone will convince me otherwise.
10. Mostly all I do with my computer is surf the net, burn dvds, play mp3s, and play the occasional game.

I dont want to spend much more than $500-600. I am willing to go lower . I don't know at this point which provides better value. I have heard the DFI Lanparty board mentioned a lot. A few months ago, P4 2.4C (800mhz) were all the rage. I dont know which is better for my needs, 64-bit or Hyperthreading. Also, as a subquestion, if I get the A64, should i use Windows XP64 or Mediacenter 2005? My guess is if I go with Intel I would use Mediacenter 2005. Plus, unlike when I bought my Athlon 750, I can no longer tell which processor is giving me the most bang for the buck. It looks like the Athlon 3000+ and the Pentium 3.0ghz are about the same price right now.

Please let me know what your mobo/cpu/ram reccommendations are for me.

Sorry for the long email. Thanks for reading this thread. Please post if you have a comment. This is not some AMD vs. Intel thread - please don't let it devolve into one.

Thanks!

 

[TDiddy]

get the amd 64 2800

 

[deanx0r]

If silence is virtue, and if you aren't going to overclock and don't want to mess with a shatload of wires to connect and big fans, I would recommend going with the SFF route.

It's prebuilt already, just add, your CPU, RAM, drives and you are set. Performance is on the par with desktop models, it's nice, cool and discreet, and very silent. Most of the SFF only accept 1 hdd + one optical drive, but I believe soltek makes SFF accepting up to 2 hdds + 2 optical drives (or 3 hdds + one optical with an adaptater).

Here's AT's review of the excellent Soltek EQ3801: http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2104

Also, while keeping your current case, i doubt you'll be able to keep it silent as noise comes mainly from fans in your case. Should you just decide to go with the mobo/cpu combo, get an ASUS board (passively cooled chipset) and some A64 2800.

GL

 

[razorweb]

Thanks for the reccs. I think I may go with the p4 3.0C + P4P800-e deluxe just because I do a lot more multimedia, burning and video encoding than games. It seems to me that multitasking is more the domain of the P4, and I prefer multitasking to the raw power that the A64 has when it comes to single task items like gaming.

thanks for all your tips! and thanks for not letting this devolve into a fanboy thread!