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I am pretty set on getting an Athlon64 3000/3200 CPU. (It's about time too!).
What ATX mobo would you recommend? It should be AGP preferably and have no less than 3 PCIs. I'm not really interested in overcloking at the mo, and just require a very stable machine for all round usage (from surfing to gaiming, etc)
I have an Audigy sound card so onboard sound is NOT necessary.
Thanks
Get yourself a ASrock 939dual mobo with PCI-E and AGP slots. To be honest mate if your upgrading and dont buy PCI-E its just pointless as AGP are slowly being phased out...
Ive just ordered one, standby for a review if it comes today...
I would highly recommend that you upgrade to PCI-E. There will be no more AGP graphics cards made anymore.
As for mobo's any of the Asus boards are solid as!!! The A8N- SLi series is probably what you should look at. But just a word of warning the Standard and deluxe version have funny chipset fans. That are prone to go easily. I would recommend spending the extra on the premium version. They have great features for if and when you do OC.
I was in this position a while back and eventually went for the Asus A8N SLi Premium mainly because I wanted to move to S939 and didn't want to have to upgrade my RAM as well as my graphics card too. AGP is being slowly phased out as everyone here has correctly pointed out but DDR is still in the mainstream, and with SLi you get some return on your investment in that later on you can add a second card to boost your graphics performance. I'd really advise against AGP; bite the bullet and go for PCI-E. Besides, when the time comes to sell it on you won't find too many interested buyers which is another incentive to move onto the platform of the forseeable future.
You'll be pleased with the Asus; I doubt they've ever made a bad board and this is probably the nicest one I've ever owned and as a bonus: no nasty whirring fan to keep you awake at night.
Its very easy to say to upgrade to PCIE, but if you already have a high end Graphics card (6800GT/Ultra) which still costs roughly £200 today, do you really want to go PCIE and have to spend £200 to get the same graphics performance than if you kept your same card and stayed AGP.
Surely, it would be cheaper in the long run to upgrade to PCIE when you are going to upgrade your graphics sub-system (an extra £70 on a motherboard in 1-2 years time when you change graphics cards, rathern than £200 today).
Granted, if you have a cheap graphics card at the moment, I would go PCIE.
Thanks for the replies. The Asrock seems a good buy although it only has 10/100 lan and not Gigabit Ethernet. 3 PCIs may be a problem as well but most mobos nowadays have 2-3.
I will most probably migrate to PCI-e but for the time being I think it's sensible to continue with the AGP until funds are replenished!