Hello, I was thinking about upgrading my current system and wanted to ask for your input. I noticed the AMD CPUs are dirt cheap now, is that because a new line of CPUs is coming out soon? It sucks since I paid $350 for an AMD 3800 X2 when it first came out and now you can get it for the same price as a dinner date. Anyway, here is the system I was thinking about upgrading to next: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... Please note that I am not a hardcore overclocker who wants to make a 2.5ghz CPU into 4ghz or anything. I only tried to overclock once about five years ago and it blew out my CPU. Thanks for your time.

AMD is coming out with a new family of AM2+ processors called the Phenom X2 and X4 series which will put the Athlon 64 family into retirment shortly. Intel just came out with a an updated version of its Core 2 Duo processors. Not to mention the Core 2 Quad series that came out not too long ago. You're better off waiting until the AM3 platform comes out which will be some time in mid 2008 which will support DDR3, SATA III and PCIe 2.0. AM2 is about to be replaced by AM2+ which will support a higher DDR2 Ram, but even with that said DDR2 Ram is on it's way out along with SATA II and PCIe 1.0. If you are going to build a completely new system from the ground up it would make sense to build a system with new standards that will last 3 years instead of outgoing standards that are about to be phased out, like DDR2 SATA II and PCIe 1.0 are about to. In the mean time you can always upgrade your processor to an Opteron dual core s939 processor. Newegg has them in stock and getting say an Opteron 175 @ 2.2ghz 1mb L2 cache, 180 @ 2.4ghz 1mb L2 cache or even a 185 @ 2.6ghz 1mb L2 cache will hold you over for another year or two just fine. Well you can't fry your s939 processor because it has thermal heat protection, meaning your pc will shut down before it any damage is caused to your system. So if you wanted to you could overclock what you already have and not have to worry about frying anything.

Thanks for the information. Yeah but it seems like computer hardware is outdated every year so the AM3 will probably be replaced with AM4 about 10 months afterwards and everyone will say not to get AM3 :P Plus I am sure when AM3 does come out it will be the standard $300+ pricetag and later drop to $150.

It's more on the lines of new hardware standards. PCIe, DDR2, and SATA II are getting phased out. Their 3 year run is comming to a close. PCIe 2.0, DDR3, SATA III standards will be around for a good 3 years or more. By the time you build that system with the new standards you you won't have to worry about new standards replacing it for aslong as you own that pc until you are ready to get another pc. The way it is now with AMD and Intel battling in preformance the days of a mainstream processor over 300 dollars will be those of the high end mainstream models and a lot of that is due to smaller NM technology. It's cheaper for AMD and Intel to produce processors now then it was 3 years ago, thanks inpart to smaller NM technology.

I would go with the 5000+ Brisbane core for $50 cheaper & overclock it. "I only tried to overclock once about five years ago and it blew out my CPU." Obviously you did it wrong...lol. But as Cobra_R pointed out, all CPU are thermally protected these days so it's virtually impossible to fry one from overheating. And if you're not gonna run SLi (which IMO is a waste of money), why get an SLi board? A board based on the 570 Ultra performs just as well & is about $40 cheaper. But if you intend to use the SLi feature, why not go for broke & get a board based on the 590 SLi chipset?

Oh well I thought that SLI was standard for all motherboards now. I do not use SLI and agree it is a waste since even my Geforce 7900 can push every game out with max settings. In fact ten years ago I wondered when they would max out in graphics and for the past few years I think they have. All of the newer games are not a huge jaw dropping upgrade since the past couple of years.