Upgrade question

[YabbyU]

Soon I am going to upgrade to the athlon 64 3200+, not sure which mobo yet. I currently have an epox 8kha+ and xp 1800+. My question is, once I install the new processor, mobo and memory, should I do a clean install of windows xp home???

I guess my concern is leftover drivers and crap from the epox board conflicting with the new set-up.

thanks in advance

 

[Boonesmi]

its aways a good idea to do a fresh install of windows if your swapping a motherboard

but... often times people dont want to go to that trouble
and if you do decide not to do a fresh install your best option is going with a motherboard that uses a similar chipset (so if you bought a new kt600 based board you could probably get by without a fresh install... but i still wouldnt recommend it)

as for the mobo most folks will probably suggest something based on the nforce2 400 (and thats a good choice)
but personally i prefer the kt600. its a very mature and stable chipset, and it has tons of features for the $$
for $78 shipped you can get the soltek sl kt600-rl or asus a7v600 and they both are loaded with features (including usb 2.0, Sata, Killer 6 channel audio)

 

[YabbyU]

cool thanks alot boonesmi I'm defineitly going with a fresh install now....on the motherboard, I've seen on these forums people talking about a new n-force, 250 i think, does anyone know when that is coming out

 

[Boonesmi]

oops i misread your original post.. i thought you said an athlonXP 3200+ not an athlon64 3200+

so my suggestion on a nforce2 or kt600 doesnt really apply


because of the design of the athlon64 and opteron, the motherboards are much less complicated... and they all perform about the same
the nforce3 150 does have some bugs though. the k8t800 boards seem to be working great!! many are also looking forward to the nforce3 250 (the new nforce 250 will be very comparable to the k8t800 in performance and features)

basically find a board with the features you want
here is a link to some at newegg. i really like the MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R and the ASUS K8V