which new mobo to get, and do i need new CPU and ram too??

[Massa]

ok, it seems as though i've been hit by the MSI k7T-Pro2A problem others have had... basically it's worked fine for 9 months and now it doesn't. So i have to get a new motherboard... but since i bought my k7t-pro2A, t-bird 1.2ghz cpu and 512mb PC133 ram, the Athlon XP DDR, Via KT266A, and fairly inexpensive DDR ram has been released. Here's my problem... I'm getting a KT266A motherboard, i just don't know which one yet... and once i do, how much performance would i be sacrificing keeping my old t-bird and PC133 ram vs. buying an Athlon XP (probably 1600+) and 512mb PC2100 DDR ram?

 

[Massa]

BUMP... dear god does this board get filled quickly

 

[John]

Why not RMA your motherboard to MSI. Since there is an issue with the KT133 boards, they are allowing end users to RMA directly to them. If you do not want to buy new memory, look at the ECS K7S5A.

 

[Woodchuck101]

If you're upgrading to a KT266A motherboard, the chances are it won't support SDR ram anyway, so you'll have to uprade your memory. (If your old SDRAM is going spare, I'm sure I could find a home for it...) Either way, unless you're doing anything seriously memory-intensive, DDR isn't going to give you a massive increase over SDR anyway. As far as CPUs go you're not looking at an enormous boost going from a T-bird 1.2 to an XP 1800+ because it's only a clock speed boost of 333Mhz, and the architectural differences between the T-bird and Palomino won't really matter until programs fully support the new instruction sets (and pigs fly.)
If you've got cash to burn, go for an XP1800+ but otherwise stick with your 1.2 until XPs become much cheaper and/or your system is intolerably slow.

What graphics card have you got, BTW? Going from a GeForce 2 of some kind to a GeForce Ti200 is gonna give you a much bigger boost in games than upgrading your CPU, and will likely be more future proof (He says, starting a flame war about Nvidias constant upgrades)

 

[Massa]

thanks for your help guys... the reason i'm looking at the 266A is because i might as well get it now that i HAVE to get a new board (RMA is 99% out of the question since i don't exactly trust MSI anymore, as well as not really wanting to wait a month to get a new board), plus i'd probably end up upgrading in the future (the upgrade bug is hard to kick). I do see your point on the actual improvements to expect though, however i do occasionally dabble in DivX encoding which is everything-intensive, plus i just like being the cool kid on the block with the fast computer =)... i have a gf2 GTS right now, and i've been eye-balling the ti200, but with this whole motherboard issue unexpectedly popping up, that'll have to wait... would i be good with getting a 266a board and ddr ram, keeping the 1.2 (and obviously accepting the slight decrease in performance), or should i go for the whole kabang if i'm gonna get a 266a... and which one should i get (my original question)... oh, and woodchuck, i'm sure we could work something out if i do decide to get rid of the pc133