What CPU/Mainboard to buy?

  • Thread starter Thread starter cpliu
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cpliu

It appears that either my mainboard or CPU has gone bad that I need to
buy a new combo.
I've not kept up with the new development for a while. Just wonder
what's the best combo to buy? I'm not a gamer but I do need to do
multimedia/web/video production with this PC. I don't want to spend a
lot money on this, maybe ~$400 at around 3Gb speed. Overclockability
would be fine.
Strangely, my PC lasts ~ 2 years each time before it dies. Is it
abnormal? I use it ~ 6 hours in the weekdays more than 10 hours in the
weekend. I turn it off when not using it.

Thanks a lot for the help,


cpliu
 
cpliu said:
It appears that either my mainboard or CPU has gone bad that I need to
buy a new combo.
I've not kept up with the new development for a while. Just wonder
what's the best combo to buy? I'm not a gamer but I do need to do
multimedia/web/video production with this PC. I don't want to spend a
lot money on this, maybe ~$400 at around 3Gb speed. Overclockability
would be fine.
Strangely, my PC lasts ~ 2 years each time before it dies. Is it
abnormal? I use it ~ 6 hours in the weekdays more than 10 hours in the
weekend. I turn it off when not using it.

Thanks a lot for the help,


cpliu
Click to expand...

Well,what will you be using the computer for? If it's mainly games or if you
want to play even some of the newer 3D titles, And Athlon 64 combo would be
best. Thjere's a new standard slot(PCI-E) for video cards now and AGP cards
won't work on motherboards with pci-e slots.
So you'd need an AGP motherboard,right?
You need to post what parts from your old system you want to keep.
 
After some reseach, I'm thinking about either:
ASUS P5AD2-E Deluxe Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 925XE ATX Intel
Motherboard - OEM $141 refurbished

intel Pentium 4 530J Prescott 800MHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor
- Retail $176

or

AOpen s760GXm-S Socket 754 SiS 760 GX Micro ATX AMD Motherboard -
Retail ~$74

AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ RETAIL ~$190.

How do they compare? Will Athlon be faster while P4 be hotter? Is
Athlon 64 the the same as Opteron.

Thanks for the help,

cpliu
 
Thanks for the reply. I'd like to keep the cost down to below $400. I
would use all the other parts from my old system. Yes, I need AGP. My
old card is gForce FX5200 or something similar. I even have a old old
voodoo 3000 card for the 2nd monitor. I don't play games so I don't
care about the speed of my video card too much.
Other parts:
SIIG NN-400012 PCI Firewire card (my old one has Firewire card builtin)
NEC 16X DVD-RW
Three 512MB PC3200 DDR memory

Thanks for the help,

cpliu
 
cpliu said:
It appears that either my mainboard or CPU has gone bad that I need to
buy a new combo.
I've not kept up with the new development for a while. Just wonder
what's the best combo to buy? I'm not a gamer but I do need to do
multimedia/web/video production with this PC. I don't want to spend a
lot money on this, maybe ~$400 at around 3Gb speed. Overclockability
would be fine.
Strangely, my PC lasts ~ 2 years each time before it dies. Is it
abnormal? I use it ~ 6 hours in the weekdays more than 10 hours in the
weekend. I turn it off when not using it.

Thanks a lot for the help,


cpliu
Click to expand...

To find the most popular motherboards, go to newegg.com and search the
motherboards and sort by votes.
 
By votes, do you mean "Rating"? That's the only name I can find from
Field Configuration Menu.
Thanks for the good suggestion.
 
cpliu said:
By votes, do you mean "Rating"? That's the only name I can find from
Field Configuration Menu.
Thanks for the good suggestion.
Click to expand...

They've changed things a bit. Sort by "Reviews". That means to sort by
then number of reviews. The most-reviewed items are presumedly the
biggest sellers.
 
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