Upgrading from Skt 939 to AM2 ???

[trainmaster5]

Been running an MSI K8N Neo 4 mb w/ Vista Ultimate 32 for a few months as my primary rig. I'm not an overclocker or big gamer but I do listen to music, web search, play AOE 2 and 3, and do resumes etc. , for my nephews. I consider myself a hobbyist rather than enthusiast ( pushing 60 yrs old). I just built a C2Duo rig w/ Vista Home Premium using an Intel DP965LT mobo but I like to keep a foot in both camps. Been looking at AM2 mobos, mainly MSI and Asus, but am open to suggestions. Plan on keeping my HD( ide), SB4, and NV6600 for now. Also have a CDRW and DVD burner, both IDE, but am willing to go SATA on 1 or 2 of the storage devices. Any advice on mobo greatly appreciated.

 

[trainmaster5]

Anyone? I'm leaning toward one of the Asus M2N derivatives although they had memory problems when they first hit the scene.Has that been corrected wirh the latest BIOS' ?

 

[FireTech]

I don't think you'll go far wrong with any of the Asus M2N/M2A MB's (I'd avoid the VIA versions). Gigabyte are worth a look too (The GA-M55S-S3 gets mentioned a bit).
It depends on your budget, µATX or ATX and feature set (eg do you need firewire/Gigabit LAN etc?)
Have a look and narrow your choice then Google. That should reveal any horror stories about your choice before you part with your cash.

 

[Texun]

I was in the same boat and leaning hard toward an AM2 Gigabyte board, I think it was the GA-M61P-S3, but I turned away at the last minute because it only had two fan headers and I needed three counting the CPU. Looking at more Gigabyte boards in that range showed the same number of fan headers so I went with the ASUS M2N-E for about $10 more. I've only had it for about a week but so far the board has been painless all the way and I have no regrets at all about my decision. I've already got a Firewire card so getting a board without it wasn't a concern.

For the money I'm real happy with the new setup. I went from an FX55 to an X2-5600 and my DVD encoding time has been cut in half. I used to overclock but I don't bother with it now. Like you I am more of a hobbyist than enthusiast and I usually pay for the performance upfront instead of overclocking it. However, I did try it and I can easily get it to 3g with no voltage changes at all. AMD's high end chips don't OC that well, and going from 2800 to 3000 wasn't that much of a gain but I just had to see what it would do.

FWIW my M2N-E \ X2-5600 is using 2x1 sticks of cheap G-Skill 800 and a 450W OCZ power supply. Mine came with the most recent BIOS and I haven't had a single hiccup since first boot.