I think I'm finally getting around to replacing my 1.3Ghz Tbird/nForce2/GeForce 4 system with an Athlon 64 socket 939 system but I had some questions for the group before I pull the trigger:
1) SATA2. I have seen reference to this but not quite sure what it entails. I have a couple of original SATA drives already - if I get a board with this will I see any performance improvement? Or do you have to get drives that specifically support it? 2) I have 2 512MB sticks of Kingston DDR PC2700 running at 167MHz and 2-2-2-5 right now. I would like to reuse these. Any chance I can toss them into the 939 system with a 200FSB or will I have to get new RAM? 3) What's this DDR2 I see at Newegg and the such? Anand doesn't use it in his reviews of the Athlon 64 mobos - is it for Intel chipsets? I also see chips rated all the way up to PC4800 (DDR600). Are these just marketing gimmicks or are they actually that fast? Aren't they limited by the 200Mhz FSB on the mobo? 4) I currently have an AGP video card and not really any reason to upgrade it right now. However, I don't want to shell out the money for a new MOBO with only and AGP slot when I know I am going to be buying a PCI Express card in the next 6 months to a year. I saw this Biostar board at Newegg (http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdetails.asp?model=NF4UL-A9) and it looks like it has both PCI-E and AGP slots. But the manufacturers website doesn't have any manuals or BIOS up for it. Anyone know if this thing exists? 5) Have there been any DVD drives out with a SATA interface yet? I would like to finally get rid of all those IDE cables. 6) Any mobo recommendations out there? I need socket 939, SATA, Firewire, USB 2.0, onboard LAN, good sound. Either AGP or PCI-E will work, but both is a dream. -- Brian
