These are the motherboards I've been looking at:

- Asus K8N-E Deluxe nForce3
- Asus K8V
- Asus K8VSE Deluxe
- Abit KV8
- Abit KV8 Pro
- Abit KV8-MAX3

I don't mind spending on the motherboards, as the most expensive out of those I've mentioned, is just over £100. I really need help in choosing the RAM. I don't want to spend too much, but also don't want cheap quality stuff...something mid range.

I'm assuming 512/1GB of PC3200 will be fine? I've been looking at a brand called GeIL which is cheaper than the kingstons etc.

I've already got the CPU added to the shopping cart (AMD Athlon 64 3000). For gfx I'm going to stick in my FX5200 128MB for the time being. I'll upgrade that later when I get a better job :)

Thanks for any help

> - Abit KV8 Pro

Using it, love it, K8T800 Pro chipset on a nice board. Very customizable, very stable, PCI/AGP lock rocks. Not for the VIA haters, but performance between latest VIA (K8T800 Pro) and NVidia (NForce 250 GB) is margin-of-error difference as far as I can tell and the boards are rock-steady. Best to stay away from older K8T800 and NForce 150 chipset based boards, I think.

> I'm assuming 512/1GB of PC3200 will be fine? I've been looking at a brand called
> GeIL which is cheaper than the kingstons etc.

I'm running 2 x 512MB Corsair Value Select PC3200 CAS2.5 at the moment. Good stable ram, not very overclockable, but I got some good timings out of it incl. 1T command.

> I've already got the CPU added to the shopping cart (AMD Athlon 64 3000). For
> gfx I'm going to stick in my FX5200 128MB for the time being. I'll upgrade that
> later when I get a better job :)

Hey, cool, same proc I've got!

I picked up a Radeon 9800 Pro when I built my sys, but I think the GeForce 6600GT is actually getting close to available now, and it's going to be in the same price range.
Something to consider, perhaps :)

Edit - something else maybe to consider is that very soon some cheap Socket 939 Athlon 64 3000+ and 3200+ are going to be available, and S939 certainly has a better future than S754, even if there's not that big of a performance delta.

-nZero

> > - Abit KV8 Pro
>
> Using it, love it, K8T800 Pro chipset on a nice board. Very customizable, very
> stable, PCI/AGP lock rocks. Not for the VIA haters, but performance between
> latest VIA (K8T800 Pro) and NVidia (NForce 250 GB) is margin-of-error difference
> as far as I can tell and the boards are rock-steady. Best to stay away from
> older K8T800 and NForce 150 chipset based boards, I think.
>
> > I'm assuming 512/1GB of PC3200 will be fine? I've been looking at a brand
> called
> > GeIL which is cheaper than the kingstons etc.
>
> I'm running 2 x 512MB Corsair Value Select PC3200 CAS2.5 at the moment. Good
> stable ram, not very overclockable, but I got some good timings out of it incl.
> 1T command.
>
> > I've already got the CPU added to the shopping cart (AMD Athlon 64 3000). For
> > gfx I'm going to stick in my FX5200 128MB for the time being. I'll upgrade
> that
> > later when I get a better job :)
>
> Hey, cool, same proc I've got!
>
> I picked up a Radeon 9800 Pro when I built my sys, but I think the GeForce
> 6600GT is actually getting close to available now, and it's going to be in the
> same price range.
> Something to consider, perhaps :)
>
> Edit - something else maybe to consider is that very soon some cheap Socket 939
> Athlon 64 3000+ and 3200+ are going to be available, and S939 certainly has a
> better future than S754, even if there's not that big of a performance delta.
>
> -nZero
>
>