Ok Im buidling a new comptuer and Ive taken about a 2 year break from keeping up with all the new stuff out for comptuers. I got burnt out on them , took a break now im back...... So whats some good brands for mother boards and whats up with the 5 diffenty types of rams whats the best dollar for dollar? DDR? PCXXXX RD ram i just want to save money without sacrifing quality. i could get gig of ram on one type for same price i could get 256 of other type? wouldnt more be better at any rate? oh well thats all i need to know just whats a well rouned motherboard be specific , i want a 1.5 ghz or higher with like 1024 of ram thats good but also quality but I dont like the prices on those "new" ram or whatever... let me know cuz , its really wierd to see all the choices that are out there.

ddr ram. amd is cheaper for cpu intel may be more stable. good graphics card, geforce4. 7200 rpm hd. asus is my biased choice for mobo. http://usa.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7v8x/overview.htm is a nice one

I have to agree with the no-name post above. Well except for the fact that Intel is more stable than AMD, but then that's my personal opinion. I feel AMD is more stable and runs faster than the Intels. Hard drives? The newest combinations out there are: 7200rmp-ATA/133. That is what I have in this machine now, but it's only a 40G. I have been told that even the newest of boards have trouble seeing anything over a 120G without overlay software, so be careful if you go any higher than that. Good Luck. Terri

AMD is better value per unit of performance than Intel CPUs. Only possible issue is that AMD chips run hotter and so you need to look for a quiet cooler/fan combo if noise is an issue. DDR=PCxxxx Suggest that unless you are a major gamer freak, about 256 (MAYBE 384) MB of RAM is all you are ever going to use, no matter how much you install, so don't waste $$. MSI motherboards are give good performance and have been well reviewed as a good value.

Thanks for the info , IM gonna order my MB tonight with the ram and hopefully ill be surfing the net with a *super fast* comptuer really soon.... :-)

I want to add one more thing...good fast hardware isn't going to do you good if you dont have a good and stable operating system with it... windowsXP Pro is a good choice, but sticking with win2000 pro is what I prefer.