Date: 08/04/06 (Computer Geeks)    Keywords: technology

(crossposted everywhere. sorry in advance.)

I'm going to overhaul my desktop computer.

Current specs:
Athlon XP 2600+
2x 512MB DDR 333 SDRAM
GeForce4 MX 4000
80GB 7200RPM ATA
250GB 7200RPM ATA
DVD-RW ATA

As you can see, I'm running on old technology. Socket A, DDR, IDE ATA, AGP... all of these have gone out the door. But I'm thinking that I want my hard drives, memory, and optical drive to stick around, if possible.

So since I'd like to keep the hard drives, memory, and optical drive, and since I already own a new GeForce 7800 GT, I think all I'm left to decide is what processor (and, as a result, motherboard) I'd like.

Socket AM2 is not an option, because it uses DDR2 RAM. I'd like to keep my 1GB sticks as they seem to suit me just fine. So if I go with AMD, I'm getting a Socket 939. I hope that's a wise choice - if someone wants to persuade me otherwise, do tell me why you think I should get an AM2 motherboard and processor, and upgrade my RAM.

And the Intel Core 2 Duos look especially delicious, but I'm not really sure how they compare to similarly-priced Athlon 64's, or 64 X2's. I'm aiming to spend about $200 on a processor, maybe a little more if necessary.

All right, that's it! Gimme some advice!

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/computergeeks/960642.html