mobo gurus help me

[Ennui]

Right, I'm going to upgrade my mobo/processor soon. I'm definitely going socket AM2, but the mobo itself is tricky.

I have IDE or PATA or whatever you call it (ribbon cables) HDDs right now, and I'd like to just be able to transfer them over to the new PC without worrying about buying XP over again or anything like that.

Are there IDE/ATA AM2 mobos, and if possible are there any that support both PATA and SATA? Other than that, I just want PCI-E, and as cheap as possible without getting crap. I've had a cheap Gigabyte mobo for a while now and it's done me very well.

I've got PC3200 DDR2 ram right now, but I can upgrade that if need be, and other than that I'll be keeping my HDDs and video card (foxconn pci-e 7900gs).

edit: to be clear I'm asking for mobo recommendations since I don't know shit about them

 

[Barney Fife]

Right, I'm going to upgrade my mobo/processor soon. I'm definitely going socket AM2, but the mobo itself is tricky.

I have IDE or PATA or whatever you call it (ribbon cables) HDDs right now, and I'd like to just be able to transfer them over to the new PC without worrying about buying XP over again or anything like that.

Are there IDE/ATA AM2 mobos, and if possible are there any that support both PATA and SATA? Other than that, I just want PCI-E, and as cheap as possible without getting crap. I've had a cheap Gigabyte mobo for a while now and it's done me very well.

I've got PC3200 DDR2 ram right now, but I can upgrade that if need be, and other than that I'll be keeping my HDDs and video card (foxconn pci-e 7900gs).

edit: to be clear I'm asking for mobo recommendations since I don't know shit about them

Most nowadays MB come with both parallel and Serial ATA connections and are relatively cheap so don't worry about there, but unfortunately you will need to buy another copy of XP, otherwise you're going to need to call Microsoft to re-register XP or buy another product key again and use same OS CD, save money like that.
As long as PCIe connection is concern; you probably wont need MB with the latest SLI chips, if you're not planing to sli soon and will use single graphic card, but if you're planning to sli; its better to go with newer more advance 590-sli boards to get the full benefit of dual x16 x16 full speed sli MBs vs. the x8 by x8 sli boards.
all socket AM2 MB only support DDR2 800MHz PC2 6400 memory modules and higher, your PC3200 will not work in socket AM2 MB so you have to start shopping for Memory, nothing fancy as long you're not planning to OC anything.
My personal favorite manufacturers are; DFI and Asus. Since DFI guys are stuck at socket 754 design I'm more of a Pro-Asus nowadays than DFI.

here are my choices:

Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe

DFI LP UT NF590 SLI=M2R/G

GEIL 2x 1GB DDR2 800 PC2 6400



Good Luck.

 

[Ennui]

awesome, thanks, and im not worried about SLI particularly

 

[Barney Fife]

No worries, glad I could help with my 2 cents.

Good Luck.