For me, it is far past time to upgrade.

My current rig is like this.

MSI K7N2 motherboard
Barton 3200 (Underclocked to 1.8 ghz because of odd instability)
2GB PC3200 RAM (Patriot, speedy and great stuff for me!)
ATI x800 XT video card. (AGP... the bane of my existence)

Spectacular! Well, I want to upgrade and I have a couple questions.

I'm teetering between two choices given the current CPU landscape.


Socket 939 or Intel's new Core 2 Duo.

I can get a nice Socket 939 and an AGP Motherboard from ASRock and have a MUCH speedier system than I have now...

OR...

I can get a schmancy new Conroe and a matching motherboard...

Problem is, that AGP video card. I know that PCIe is the dominate technology in video cards and AGP is all but dead, but I spent like $300 on this card less than a year ago and here I am, wanting to upgrade the rest of my rig but the bloody market seems to have passed me by.


The following two motherboards catch my attention.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157092
ASRock 775Dual-VSTA
1x AGP & 1x PCIe. Cheap too. $58.
I'd get one of them no Conroe's to go in this (Assume It would fit? Sorry. I dont know Intel's that much)


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157081
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2
1x AGP & 1xPCIe. Also cheap, at $66.
I'd get the best AMD I could for this one, once Conroe is out, prices will drop. Dual core something... I dont know for sure.

I'm not too concerned with overclocking, just stability and reliability and stock speed.


Also, I've never built an Intel rig before, so this is virgin territory. If any of you gurus have words of wisdom, please share.


Also, fanboys of either side please keep it on topic.

Just read G'Pa's sticky and will add the following.

Budget: Say, as close to $450 as possible
Other essential hardware: 2x 80GB SATA HDDs in RAID0; 500 Watt Antec Power Supply
Primary system use: General home use + Games.

Well the Asrock intel motherboard you listed doesnt support conroe. I think getting the AMD Asrock motherboard and getting a nice dual core would be the best. This way all you need is a new motherboard and cpu. Which leaves quite a bit to get you a good dual core. This is my opinion, someone else might be able to give you another one.

Considering the budget & the wish to stick with your AGP card, I can only recommend a socket 939
board with an AGP slot.... It's up to you if you need a PCI-E slot as well... I mean... by the time you'd
want your nextr upgrade, you might want to upgrade it all...

TDR

Asrock makes a board based off the 865 chipset that uses DDR and AGP while supporting Core2Duo (Conroe) Probably hinders the performance a bit, but might be worth a look.

http://www.asrock.com/product/775i65G.htm

EDIT: Woops, just realized that was the same board you linked to.... actually no it isn't.... I'd go with the 865 based board over the VIA, as Intel hands down beats out VIA in making chipsets for Intel platforms.

ACtually the newer versions of that board do support conroe

http://www.asrock.com/product/775Dual-VSTA.htm

My votes for the conroe.

I would recommend no upgrade until you are ready to take all of your gear into the 21st century. I understand that the card is relatively new, but cut your losses by selling it on eBay. Set aside $50 every couple of weeks and soon you will be able to do a Mobo, CPU, Video, RAM upgrade all at once.

Based on your post I don't see a great urgency and as long as you are running what you need without any problems, hold off until you can do it all at once.

All I can recommend is go conroe! hold off until you can afford it.

It's the latest and will be top of the game for a substantial amount of time.

As for your AGP card and old components - 2 words... Trading post!
There's always someone looking for replacement stuff