Hi

I am putting together the components for a replacement PC system. I haven't yet decided whether to go Athlon or Intel (there's a good reason for me to choose either one) but I have got a SATA150 HDD and a SATA2 HDD, both of which support NCQ. I'm assuming (unless I want to waste the features) that this restricts my choice of motherboard somewhat? I also probably want a MB that can take an expensive 64bit chip even if I end up buying a less powerful (i.e. cheaper!) cpu to begin with.

Any good advice?

thanks
t

Although I haven't taken the 64 bit plunge, most of my readings have sided towards AMD over Intel. I'll let more of the experts explain why or why not to get AMD. You most likely will hear both sides and probably will have to take an educated guess. My personal recommendation for mobos is Asus.

If you want to install a 64 bit CPU you are going to have to buy a 64 bit motherboard and 64 bit CPU from the outset.

You cannot put a 32 bit CPU in a motherboard designed for a 64 bit CPU.

Stuart

You sound like a guy that will appreciate a DFI NF4 SLI board, we all go by different principles when it comes to upgrades, some need to have the latest as they debut, others like myself, wait for an opportunity to get more bang for my buck.

Just to let you know, AMD plans to start phasing out the 939 platform second quarter of 2006, for the new Socket M2. With that in hindsight, you probably will end up upgrading not just the processor but also whatever board you get now come your next upgrade.

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"You cannot put a 32 bit CPU in a motherboard designed for a 64 bit CPU"

Not exactly true. The socket 754 Sempron is the 32-bit version of the socket 754 Athlon 64.

Asus A7N8X-X
1800+ @ 8.5 x 200MHz
768MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro

Hmm, so much for 64bit then :-)

I'm probably not going to go down the SLI route (too expensive to buy TWO decent VC's on top of everything else) and the bulk of my gaming (simulation) won't benefit from SLI as it is apparently more CPU bound. That says Athlon for the CPU. On the other hand multimedia editing is also required - which says Pentium.

Can somebody help me with the SATA/NCQ query? I see MB's claiming all sorts of SATA support and I don't know if the SATA150/SATA II disks need their own specific capability on the MB or if it is just buzzword-compatibility I'm seeing.

I also read somewhere that an NCQ-capable disk needs an NCQ-enabled MB; this tells me that most aren't.

thanks
t