Remodel my system.

[smidley]

Ok, If I decide to go with AMD as my new provider, what should I buy. I currently have an Intel PIII 800, ASUS P3B-F motherboard, 256megs PC100 SDRAM, TNT2 Ultra AGPcard, I am going to buy an X-Gamer 5.1 soundcard, 10/100 NIC, 20gig 5200 hard drive, 30gig 7200 hard drive, 4x4x24 CD-RW, 44X CD-ROM. So what should I buy for a new Motherboard and CPU? Should I wait for something new to come out from AMD? will this lower my cost? I have a pretty good system right now so I really want some expert advice on this one please. Thanx alot all you guys.

[onetrueday]

It is only my humble opinion, but I would leave your motherboard and cpu be. I bought an amd950 yesterday(hopefully it'll get here on monday), so i've recently done a lot of research on benchmarks for differant cpu's. Okay, so you're considering going with an amd. The funny thing is, an amd950 athlon BARELY beats an intel 733 coppermine in a couple of differant benchmarks I've come across. Now, I know the thunderbird is faster; but how much faster? I did notice two things which would really improve your system for under $300. First of all, it seems that having pc133 vs. pc100 makes a big difference. My information only comes from benchmarks, but there was a pretty big differance between the two. You can buy 256megs of pc133 ram from www.tigerdirect.com for $79 right now. The other thing I would consider before you upgrade your mobo and cpu is a better video card. I've played some games before on the tnt2 and it is a great setup, but my radeon 64ddr is superior. I've seen a number of sites have it for under $200 now. Just my humble opinion.

[cy]

If you are willing to spend some money, wait for the 1.2Ghz T-Bird with DDR ram, since your are getting a new processor, mine as well get the fastest one so it can last longer.
For motherboard, if your are gonna get the new 1.2, get a Abit KT7A-Raid and get two identical drive instead of 1 5400rpm 20GB and 1 7200rpm 30GB, your might want to get like 2 30GB 5400rpm or 7200rpm or 2 20GB, cuz Raid actually makes them communicate faster and i've heard that u can clone one drive from the others (someone verify this plz)...
Oh, and ram...of course DDR ram...(your can use your old ram too, but what's the point of using slow ram if you can use faster ones?)

If your want to keep your current ram and others, go with the 1.2Ghz 200FSB with probably a KT7A too, and you can keep your existing ram. For the CD-Writer, why don't u get a 8x at least? Their price is pretty decent now. I have a external and a internal HP 8200 4x RW for my desktop and laptop, they are not bad, but not fast enough.
Really depends what your system is gonna use for....if you want more harddrive, then you can lower your money that spend on CD-RW. For game, you can probably lower the harddrive a bit and put more on graphic card, you get what i mean?

Hope this info helps you a bit....if anything up here is wrong, someone plz verify them

[Cornbread]

Originally posted by smidley:
Ok, If I decide to go with AMD as my new provider, what should I buy. I currently have an Intel PIII 800, ASUS P3B-F motherboard, 256megs PC100 SDRAM, TNT2 Ultra AGPcard, I am going to buy an X-Gamer 5.1 soundcard, 10/100 NIC, 20gig 5200 hard drive, 30gig 7200 hard drive, 4x4x24 CD-RW, 44X CD-ROM. So what should I buy for a new Motherboard and CPU? Should I wait for something new to come out from AMD? will this lower my cost? I have a pretty good system right now so I really want some expert advice on this one please. Thanx alot all you guys.

why upgrade? you have a good system now.