Suggest a CPU/MoBo please

[jbutvin]

Hi I recently built a computer that is composed of...

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 3000
MoBo: Gigabyte GA-7N400V Pro2
Ram: 2x 512mb DDR DIMM, 2x 256mb DDR DIMM
Video Card: NVidia 6800 Gt OC
Hard Drives: 250gig & 120gig Western Digital
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Audigy 2ZS

It is a good system, but I am looking for a better MoBo and perhaps changing over to a P4 800 mhz FSB CPU. Anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do for a MoBo/CPU combo? (for around 500 or less)

Thanks

 

[Justin]

I would suggest sticking with AMD and going for an Athlon 64 939 with 1mb L2 cache. You can easily get a rock-solid NForce-4 Motherboard and that cpu for far less than $500.


Here are some decent NF4 motherboards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136152
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131524
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131517

And the A64:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103537
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103494
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103539


If you REALLY want to go Intel, I would suggest getting an LGA775 motherboard. Such as:

Intel D945GNTKLR


And getting a dual-core CPU such as the P4 830 or 840


You can get those for under $500 as wel.