Motherboard recommendations

[Legin76]

I'm looking to upgrade my system. I want to use as many of my old parts as possible but with the option to easily upgrade to something newer and faster in the future at minimal cost.

I have an ATHLON XP2400+ Thoroughbred with I'd like to keep if I can but be able to upgrade to a 64bit in 6 months to a year if this is possible. If not I'll consider upgrading that too.

My ram is pc133 so that can go. My hd is 4/5 full so I'd like it to have SATA.

Other than that it needs to be a reasonable price as I dont have a big budget.

What do you guys recommend?

[Mblaster]

You want to be able to upgrade to 64Bit on the same motherboard as you are going to use in your current setup?

If so then that is impossible as they both use different CPU sockets. If you were to buy a new motherbaord for that processor now and upgrade in a years time to an A64 then the only main component you could keep would probably be the HDD, although probably the RAM as well, but I'm not sure when AMD will be making the transition to DDR2 RAM, if the momory manufacters start releasing low latency DDR2 then it will be soon.

But if you do want to buy a new motherboard that will only be compatable with your current CPU then i would recomend the Abit NF7-S, as this is generally considered the best Socket A motherbaord.

[Legin76]

That sounds like good advice. It's the same one my friend recommended.

[Rave]

Asrock make a Socket-A motherboard that can accept a module for K8 (S754) processors. It's a bit of an inelegant solution though, I can't believe it performs all that well, and it probably isn't much (or any) cheaper than buying a midrange Socket-A board now, then selling it in six months time when you upgrade to K8.

Rich ¬)

[ed^chigliak]

Simpler to start again with a new system when you decide to buy A64. Mixing the old with the new hardware and you'll end up with unbalanced performance or compatability problems. I would just sell your existing PC in 6-12 months re-use the money.