what mobo ?

[gamer-woman]

Hi all

im new here , im planning to built a new "gaming" pc for myself in about 6month or 1 year time . Now i wonder how should i best/practicly plan up my buy ? i was 1st thinking of buying componets bit by bit , like 1st buy motherboard , later buy psu & so on ? is this a good idea ? i was looking also at some mobo's :
1: Asus crosshair "Republic of gamers" socket AM2
2: asus M2N32-sli-deluxe
3: foxconn c51xem2aa nforce590 sli AM2

Is there any other good gaming mobo i should look for?
heard bout Gigabyte , but im not quite sure of them ..btw should i in the near future look for only :Nforce5 mobos?
1 thing confuses me alot its this when u buy stuff : "in stock" & "retail" ? what does this mean ? should u buy "in stock" ?
or wait til' the price drops & buy "retail" ?
my budget for my new "planned" gaming pc would be approx : 500$ - 1000$ (500Euro-1000Euro) i guess.
Please give me some advices or some good plan or whatever to help a bit on the way on this BIG planning.
ps: whats this "conroe" thing ? its Intel ?
Thanks a lot ! cheers guys !

ps: I might be a woman but im learning bout puters so pls let me ....

 

[Apokalipse]

Conroe is the Core 2 Duo, Intel's newest CPU. currently it is the top CPU out.

that may not be the case in a year. AMD is coming out with K8L, and quad cores, and they are looking pretty good; especially when you look at their architectural changes (the changes to the insides of the CPU)

AMD is also going to move to a new socket: AM3. now, AM3 CPU's will actually work in AM2 motherboards, but not vice versa. I'm pretty sure AM3 will use DDR3 RAM (not out yet)

given this, I'd hold out on deciding on the motherboard right now

now, for gaming, you are also going to want a good video card. both ATI and nVidia are in the process of making their new graphics cards, which will almost definately be out before 6 months.
ATI's card will be the X2800 XT / XTX series
nVidia's card will be the 8800 GT / GTX

both cards will be really good; though they'll both be expensive too. my guess is that the X2800 XT will be the best for its price though.

 

[LU4sTrooper]

nVidia's card will be the 8800 GT / GTX

Ha I know I'm being picky, but the new Nvidia cards are the 8800GTX and GTS

 

[Apokalipse]

Ha I know I'm being picky, but the new Nvidia cards are the 8800GTX and GTS

odd. any idea why they're changing their naming scheme... again?

 

[gamer-woman]

well arent quad SLI setups gonna draw enormous power/electricty ? like looks for now the biggest gamer power psu's are 700w if not above , & that is WAY too much for me ...should i stay away from nforce5 mobos? no matter how better the mobos will be im still limited cuz on tight budget .
im planning to buy & built this new planned gamer pc desktop , but im all confused ......

 

[Apokalipse]

yes, quad SLI draws lots of power. and it is not a very efficient use of 4 GPU's; I'd recommend a single video card.

a single video card, plus a dual or quad core CPU (AMD's quad cores will actually be quite power efficient) should do fine on 520-550W

Nforce5 chips aren't bad. I wouldn't say stay away from them; but when you build, the Nforce5 may not be on the motherboard you want (for example, it almost definately won't work on AM3 motherboards)

again, I'd hold off deciding on a motherboard until you actually are getting the PC