PC Upgrade

[Hogans_Alley]

I've decided to go with AMD Athlon XP for my upgrade. I could get a better deal from Fry's Electronics if I purchase a bundled motherboard (around $ 160.00 for an AMD xp +2800 and a 400 FSB ECS motherboard with a NVidia2 chipset). I'd appreciate your input regarding your recommended manufacturer of mother boards and chipset. I presently have IWill K266 which, although I have had no problems, it was dificult getting support at times. Also I was experiencing problems with my USB ports. I understand that this was common with the VIA chipset and AMD processors over 512M.

Thanks

Hogans Alley

[Ivan]

As the old motherboard doesn't like Bartons (the XP2800+) because of bus speed, you don't have much choice.

I hope you have at least DDR-2100 RAM already, that can be placed on the new board, which supports the new 400MHz DDR too

[Hogans_Alley]

Anything past PC66/100/133 confuses me. Please clarify the differences among PC 2100, 2700, 3200 etc. Can any be used with DDR boards? And what does Dual Channel do? What do you think of the Asus built in audio, the Soundstorm. Is that better than my Soundblaster Audigy? You see I'm planning to upgrade and to balance my needs vs. cost I have decided on the following:  Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard ($160.00), AMD AXDA2400BOX THOROUGHBRED Processor ($100.00) and DDR 512MB PC3200 SIMPLE ($90.00). Any concerns I should have? The processor is subject to reconsideration, up to 2800+ maybe.

Hogans Alley

[swanny338]

if you already have a sound blaster audigy i would use that. And PC2100 to 3200 can be used with the AMD Athlons, anything above 3200 i think can be used but it wont increase preformance because of the Processor.

Dual channel gives an increase in performance. Two of the exact same RAM put in the first and third slot of the A7N8X Deluxe will give you a bit more power. so if your willing, pay another 90 dollars for another 512MB PC3200. I wouldnt recommend gettings two 256MB chips cause if you plan to upgrade u are pretty much wasting money. If you do not want to pay an extra 90 now just get another 512MB chip that is exactly the same. Same brand, same type, same everything.

Hope i didnt confuse you, i kinda confused myself  ::)