I am looking to replace my mobo and cpu.
I have soltek board with athlon xp 1900 for 3 years. time to replace now

any recommendation for less than $200 for both mobo and cpu?
I would like to keep radeon 9600 so agp slot is needed.

and keeping it amd b/c I can use my ddr rams


[Edited on January 9, 2006 at 9:26 PM. Reason : .]

1/9/2006 9:26:02 PM

200 total for cpu and mb? or less than 200 each?

1/9/2006 9:36:26 PM

200 total

1/9/2006 10:04:51 PM

I think I found the site for you, maybe, http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/SubCategory.asp?SubCategory=22 (scroll down to see the basic models).

1/9/2006 10:33:56 PM

ASRock Dual Sata 2, it's got AGP and PCI-x16 if you ever want to upgrade.

1/9/2006 11:25:41 PM

I also highly recommend the ASRock Dual SATA2 that is the board I am buying whenever it goes on sale somewhere. It is currently like 73 bucks shipped but I still want a sale.

http://www.asrock.com/product/product_939Dual-SATA2.htm

Here is a link to a review.

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2005/asrock/reviews/939Dual-SATA2/g1.htm

Great Great Great board. It also has M2 upgrade support for the future AMD socket through an expansion board.

1/10/2006 1:12:51 AM

^ have you all actually read end user comments on the board? b/c the board is crap, agp patches, incompatibilities, instability, out-dated bios, horrible tech-support, horrible on-board sound, difficulty with sataII install, the list goes on.

another one of those cool ideas, poorly implemented....

[Edited on January 10, 2006 at 1:52 AM. Reason : .]

1/10/2006 1:52:04 AM

Yes I have read all about it. People always bitch about something, most of which the fault lies on them not the board. I trust review after review on major sites over some billy bob on a user review. I know a lot of people off the computer forum I roam (http://forums.guru3d.com/index.php?s=) that have this board and love it. The only issue was a cold boot issue that was solved in a bios update.

1/10/2006 2:08:55 AM

^yeah you are right about that, a lot of it is user based problems, but still a little nerving to hear someone had to use an old single core cpu to boot just to update the bios for a dual core cpu, meaning if all you have is a dual core cpu you can't boot to even flash it... go figure

1/10/2006 2:23:46 PM

if you're running a dual-core cpu, it's generally a good assumption that the person won't be out to buy a bargain board. if i'm gonna spend the money on a cpu like that, i'll get a better board. for what it is, it's a very nice board. I've had no problems with it so far.

1/10/2006 8:35:00 PM

Im buying a X2 3800+ with this board very soon and all the boys that have this board on that forum I posted have had 0 problems with dual core. I havent heard about that issue. The board is not that cheap 70 bucks is midrange. When it comes to motherboards with performance differences between the top dog and the lowest board you are talking 10-15fps. The ASRock usually is about 5 fps slower than the top dogs. Yall do know that Asus owns ASRock right?

1/10/2006 8:39:02 PM

It's all a matter of preference anyway. The main reason I bought this board was because I wanted to upgrade to AMD proc., but still use my AGP 6600GT.

1/10/2006 9:39:45 PM