Build for Son

[SARGE]

Built my son an Athlon pc 7-8 years ago, I believe a 900 mhz. He's doing alot of music making with video now and I offered to build him a new machine. I want a "genuine" Intel board with integrated sound and video, as glc recommended to me years ago for my own use. I haven't kept up with anything new in several years so don't know what's out there. He does have 2 hard drives (IDE) with stuff he wants to keep and I half-way understand mobos come with SATA now (which I use for myself on Intel board). I need recommends on good mobo and processor for nowadays gaming and video/audio demands, reasonable cost and advice on how to somehow keep and reuse his stuff on the IDE drives - else this will all be a waste of time and money. Or do they even make mobos now that have IDE, which would be simpler just by inserting the drives as they are and go from there? He can't lose the stuff on the drives as he has literally made the music and money from the music.

Thanks.

[alex530]

Most new motherboards don't natively support IDE. What I would recommend is for him to copy all of his data onto an external HDD, then transfer it over to his new computer. As far as onboard video, I would advise against it since it sounds like he might be doing some music or video editing. It's not all that more expensive to buy a decent video card, and onboard sound should be fine. What's your budget range?
A good motherboard would be something in the Asus P5K series. A good powerful processor would be an Intel C2D E8400, or you might want to take a look at the quad-core offerings as well.

[SARGE]

Originally Posted by alex530 Most new motherboards don't natively support IDE. What I would recommend is for him to copy all of his data onto an external HDD, then transfer it over to his new computer. As far as onboard video, I would advise against it since it sounds like he might be doing some music or video editing. It's not all that more expensive to buy a decent video card, and onboard sound should be fine. What's your budget range? A good motherboard would be something in the Asus P5K series. A good powerful processor would be an Intel C2D E8400, or you might want to take a look at the quad-core offerings as well.

Geez, gotta spring for an external HDD on top of a new build? Video card I kinda expected.

[trulad]

Sarge, you can get an enclosure for the two IDE drives and keep all the files on them. I have two set up that way. Works great.
trulad

[Alaron]

SARGE, if you're looking for genuine Intel, this the board to get: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121323 Onboard sound/video and has native IDE support for those old drives if you want to keep using them.

Toss in 2GB of DDR2-800: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145590

And some type of Core 2 Duo based on budget. We recommend the E6750 or Q6600. Ask your son if his programs can take advantage of a quad-core. If so, the latter is the winner. If that stretches the budget, toss in an E4500 and upgrade later.