Lost at Motherboard Sea

[Snump]

I'm looking for a new motherboard, somebody on here told me to look at Asus... I have used Gigabyte and they seem to work well for me. But my question is, is there something right around the corner that will increase speed majorly? For example, all this dual core stuff is coming out. I'm not interested in overclocking IMO its not worth it. What I don't want is built in video.
At this point I'm lost in a sea of motherboards and I don't know what to pick.

 

[Elbatrop1]

Do you already have hardware and you are looking for an upgrade? Also, what do you use your computer for?

Such questions, if answered will give us further insight into your specific needs.

 

[Snump]

Do you already have hardware and you are looking for an upgrade? Also, what do you use your computer for?

Such questions, if answered will give us further insight into your specific needs.

I have a case and an Nvidia video card. I play games, word processing you name it... I do it. I would rather steer clear of AMD and their Via, SiS and that crazy nforce chipsets, so I want to stick with Intel.

Should I go with SATA RAID? That would be nice since I don't backup... I think I'm the only person in the worls still using diskettes - for my papers. (Masters degree) I have two other PCs as it is, one is a P4 2.8 and other is an Athlon 2800 with Mandrake 10.

 

[Elbatrop1]

You could go with a RAID-1 array with SATA if you really wanted.
Here's my recommendation for a mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131534

Is your vid card AGP or PCI-E? This mobo^^ will only use PCI-E.

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Their's nothing wrong with AMD Chipsets, the Nvidia Nforce is great

 

[zerosweet]

foxconns are pretty good and they look nice too. Plus the price isnt bad on them.

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

foxconns are in the top 5 worst motherboard's

 

[Snump]

You could go with a RAID-1 array with SATA if you really wanted.
Here's my recommendation for a mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131534

Is your vid card AGP or PCI-E? This mobo^^ will only use PCI-E.

It is AGP, I figure I'll stick with it for a year.

 

[Snump]

Their's nothing wrong with AMD Chipsets, the Nvidia Nforce is great

For reasons that I'll keep to myself I would like to get away from them, and stick to Intel - for now.

 

[Elbatrop1]

Hmmm. This is where you need to make a big decision:

Either:
a) Sell off the AGP vid card and get a mobo that uses PCI-E (and then get a PCI-E vid card to match).

b) Keep the AGP card and get a mobo that cant support the latest CPUs (including Dual Cores and emulated 64-bit).

I would personally choose A. You can get cheapy cards like the X300 to keep you going until you can save up for a better card, or if you have the money get yourself a higher end card.

If you choose the mobo I originally suggested, you would have to get a PCI-E card.

99.999% socket 775 (the ones that support dual core and emulated 64-bit) motherboards only use PCI-E.