What to look for in hardware?

[Roland Deschain]

Hi all,

Whenever you look at hardware, there's a million of parameters that they give you for every single component. Is there a nice site which actualy makes sense of those parameters, cause I'm looking at new motherboards and 75% of the info is just gibberish to me .

Thanks.

PS: Is it worth buying a 940 socket motherboard, cause you have to pay up a lot for the 940 CPU.

PPS: Do all current AMD motherboards support dual core??

 

[JNightshade]

Personally, I look for a lot of silicon and metal. If there's a lot of that, you know you're on the right track.

 

[Cole]

Go for a Socket 939 or a Socket M.
Socket 939 is the most common Amd Athlon 64 socket, but all future processors will be Socket M for Amd.

Socket 939 is basically the Amd Athlon 64 lineup.

Heres what you do:
Find a processor that you like then find it's socket. Find a graphics card you like and find if it's agp\pci-express 16x.
Go find a motherboard that fits both requirements. Then find a PSU that meets those requirments. Now if you plan on being able to re-use your computer parts making upgrading much easier and cheaper you will need to know more on what Socket to get and to stick to Pci Express and get a nice PSU.

How much you willing to spend btw?

 

[Roland Deschain]

Currently I have a 9800Pro, 1GB RAM, ASUS P4S800 Motherboard, and a 3.06 Intel CPU. What my basic goal is to gradually beef up my computer, so when Vista comes out I can buy a nice DX10 video card. I know that my motherboard is the weakest, and I want an AMD one, so I gotta get a new CPU as well )

I plan to spend about $500-750 (over a time span of course, mans gotta eat).

 

[Cole]

that much for the motherboard and processor?
I'd look into a Asus or DFI motherboard that has a 939 Socket cuz the only Socket M is the latest and most amazing FX-60 and most costly...
Then I'd look into maybe an Amd Athlon 3800 X2?
Then maybe a nice Antec Power Supply thats around 80 - 100 that way you can be sure your power supply will never be a problem and it will run whatever you throw at it.
(My Antec Trupower II 550 SLI Certificated kicks others in the balls).

Then I'd look into getting a nice new Pci Express x16 Graphics Card when they come along. I'm just happy my 7800GTX will be givin WGF1.0 drivers so I wont have to upgrade it right away. Then I just gotta be worried about when WGF 2.0 comes along.