Athlon 6000+ or Intel Core Duo 6420?

[Grafficks]

Some regular DDR2-800MHz speed RAM would be fine.

Get a 2GB kit of two sticks (2 x 1024MB), DDR2-800(MHz), PC2-6400(MB/s), 4-4-4 timings, and from a good brand like Corsair, OCZ, Kingston.

RAM with those excellent specs can be found for very low prices these days.

Try not to get value-series RAM, instead get performance RAM. You can usually recognize high-end (or at least mid-range) RAM because they have the manufacturer's signature heatspreaders on them (compared to the regular green & black chip).


Examples:

Corsair XMS2 2x1024MB DDR2-800 PC2-6400 4-4-4-12

OCZ Platinum (Revision 2) 2x1024MB DDR2-800 PC2-6400 4-4-4-15

These are Newegg links, so try to find the exact same ones from the website you usually shop at.

 

[beef_jerky4104]

ASUS is one of the better mobo manufacturers. I'd rather buy them than a Biostar or ECS mobo.

Biostar is owned by MSI, as for ECS Elite Group they make decent boards as well. Just don't plan to go gaming.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

I've had bad experiences with 4 boards from Biostar and 7 boards from ECS. All died within 5-6 months of installation. I used to work part-time in a computer shop where this happened, so that many failures is definitely not some kind of anomaly.
@Tedster, the E6420 is a desktop chip, which is what he was going for. There is no Core Duo 6420 as far as I know, which is what confused you I think. The title's supposed to be Core 2 Duo instead.

 

[beef_jerky4104]

Really? I've built 3 computers with Biostar boards and think they build excellent boards for the price. As for ECS Elite Group I've only made one RIG with them and it has run strong for a year now. But yes I would recommend ASUS over Biostar or ECS Elite Group. Then again why I hate about ASUS is that they are overpriced and overrated.

 

[k.jacko]

Biostar and ECS suck nads for me. Its not so much that they are crappily made (although i have had plenty of faults with ECS boards), but they're just so damn slow, compared to Gigabyte, Asus, Abit, MSI.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Hmm, maybe it's because I've had mainly good experiences with ASUS. I've used three ASUS boards in the past, one Socket 478 and two Socket 775 ones. All three were\are rock solid. The last one I used, the P5WDH Deluxe and my current one, the P5K Deluxe were just great. They worked superb out of the box. Maybe if I didn't buy the Deluxe models...

 

[Mirob]

I've used all those brands and have found Asus to be the best, most free form annoying little quirks. I have two Biostar Tforce boards running now. They are good but don't get the BIOS support that Asus gives. I also have one ECS running now. It works fine, but it's not a enthusiast product like the others. It works at stock. I had some ECS super7 mobos that could not run at the 100MHz FSB even though they have jumpers to 120. They use cheap components.

The P5WDH is the best I ever had. I've owned over a half dozen Asus boards.