Need help choosing MOBO, CPU, RAM

[edrod13]

Guys,

Years ago I put together an Asus P4TE w/intels 850 chipset for a good friend but I think its time to retire it. He just purchased an Mbox to mix beats and record lyrics but it required Windows XP. We purchased it and I installed it, but it complains that we should be running at least 365MB of ram to be fully optimized. At the time RDRAM was very expensive so I put two 128MB sticks and did not think anything of it since we were running Win98SE at the time. So instead of purchasing some more useless ram we have decided to upgrade the Mobo, CPU, and ram.

I prefer to use ASUS boards and have alot of faith in NVIDIA chipsets with AMD chips, but would like to see what Intel setup would be good to look at.

If you had the option to upgrade these three items what board and chip would it be? Please this is not intended to be an intel/AMD flame war!

Here's what my AMD setup would look like:

ASUS "A7N8X-E Deluxe" nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD $89
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ "Barton", 400 FSB, 512K Cache Processor $153
512MB DDR400 probably Kingston Value ram $72

Possible intel choice:

Intel LGA 775 Pentium 4 520 2.8 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Technology $165
Motherboard?
512MB DDR 400 $72

I would like to stay around $325 give or take


Edrod13

[Panama Red]

First off a comment on the AMD system. Is that cpu an oem version? If so the warranty is limited and you'll need to buy a heatsink/fan assembly too. Retail versions of the 400fsb 3000+ aren't too common. Might want to go with a 333fsb retail version instead.

As for the Intel system, I'm going to recommend something midrange rather than high end since that's pretty much what the AMD system reflects.

Mobo

CPU

Memory

[edrod13]

Panama,

What high end AMD parts would you choose? Mobo and CPU since we have no desire to overclock I will stick with the value ram. Thanks

[Panama Red]

Probably an Asus A8V mobo and a Athlon 64, 3500+, 939 socket. Darn processor is big $ tho'!

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...131-510&depa=0

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-463&depa=0

[edrod13]

For intel setups should I even consider any Socket 478 motherboards or will these be phased out soon and replaced by the LGA775? Thanks

Edrod13

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by edrod13 For intel setups should I even consider any Socket 478 motherboards or will these be phased out soon and replaced by the LGA775?

Socket 478 isn't long for this world...go with Socket T (LGA775).

Cricket

[edrod13]

we are going to scratch the whole upgrade thing and just get two more Rambus modules. It currently has 2-128MB sticks and I would like to know if It is possible to get 2-256MB modules and run all of them together even though the density is different? I will just put both 128MB on one channel and the 256MB on the other. Thanks

Edrod13