Hi, As I blew up my PC, i need a new one! I am looking to buy an upgrade kit from a local vendor, a 2.8GHz HT chip, ASUS P4S800-mx mobo and 256mb DDR400RAM. Is the mobo any good ? Ie, upgrading in the future, and is it reliable? Any good for gaming? I dont know, but i think i'm allowed to change the mobo for the upgrade kit. Any good recommendations for a Gigabyte mobo? I also live in Australia. Thanks, Matthew

"As I blew up my PC" Let's here the story. "Any good for gaming?" If you want a decent gaming rig, build an AMD system. Now let's here that story...

Wher in OZ Matt ??? Im in Adelaide !! Jam has a point gaming !! AMD or high end Intell. IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT - SIGNATURE COURTESY OF BUZZ187

First of all, I'm in Melbourne. Secondly, i do like AMD Athlons but i want the p4 for the upgrade path... u can only go up to the XP 3200+... Is the mobo ne good? I'll tell u how i fried the pc... i added a neon light...ok, booted it up, everything connected, startup, bang! smoke, no power, tears! Took it to get looked at... PSU, Snd, CDRW/DVD, mobo, CPU, RAM-everything fried except 4 da hdd and vid. card!

Matt !!! Websence at work is blocking my longer psost's I eill drop a post to you later today when I get home from work. IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT - SIGNATURE COURTESY OF BUZZ187

To be honest and direct, for any one that is looking for an upgrade path at the moment should wait for a few months. Unless you really need a new rig , the new technology chipsets and CPU have just been released and hit the market place. Many things have changed and what we have to buy now will NOT be upgradable nor will it match with the new boards or processors. The processors will not take the old boards, nor will the new boards take the old processors, new DDR2 ram modules are about to hit the market, although some of the higher speed current ram modules can be used on the new boards, with the 915 chipsets exception being the Intel 925X chipset which will only take DDR2 , based on current and initial reports. As far as the board is concerned the p4s has the sis FX chipset on it, in my personal opinion I would stay away from it and have a good look at the new boards with the SIS 655TX chipset, it is a far better chip. If the budget can go that far look at some of the boards that have the 865 chipset on them, or the 875, but most of the 875 boards get very very pricey. As for the AMD side of the argument, if one is looking at gaming platform, I would defntly go with an AMD, the asus a7n8x-x with the nforce chipset mated with a amd xp300+ and 512 meg runs rings around the SIS based boards. Or the asus 87n8x - e delux with a xp3200+ and 2 by 256 modules of PC3200 on dual channel and sata drives will last and perform far better than you could possibly imagine. To conclude, if you really want to stick with intel, look at another board, have a look at the Gigabyte board with the 655TX chipset , loaded with features and very well priced. Hope that helps IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT - SIGNATURE COURTESY OF BUZZ187