Well...I took the 64bit Plunge!

[govtcheez75]

I just ordered a Athlon 64 3200+ (retail), and a MSI K8T800 K8T Neo-FIS2R Motherboard. This motherboard seems like an awesome deal at just $106 after a $20 rebate.
I got the 3200+ from Microcenter for $280 after taxes, so my total for this combo came to under $390!

...Does anyone know or have experience with this motherboard? I read a few reviews, and they seem good. Unbeatable for the money.
Now I wish that I wasn't going on a ski trip this weekend, because my components are arriving on Friday.
...I can't wait until I have this up and running.

Also, what are the benefits of SATA as opposed to IDE? Will I notice that much of a difference by switching to a SATA HDD over my Maxtor 7200rpm with 8mb cache?

 

[petery83]

Congratulations!

As of now I don't think there will be that much of a difference with the SATA HDD, unless it's a Raptor or some 10K RPM drive (that's what helps with the speed).

 

[stardust]

You will notice SATA difference mostly with RAID 0

 

[myocardia]

I didn't notice a big difference, personally, but since I thought "why buy a hard-drive that my next mobo won't even support", so when I needed a new one, I went ahead and got an SATA. It only cost about $10.