I've owned three ECS motherboards. All three have had problems. One was returned under warranty the day after it arrived, another was replaced under warranty after two months, and the third caused regular lockups, sound issues, and poor hard drive performance until I gave up on it and replaced it with a different brand.
lol...exactly my point...but, people still buy them...usually from stores like frys who bundle it with something to make poeple think its a great deal, only to find out later that you have to go out and buy something else because it doesnt work and frys doesnt care...lol
Here are my choices: A) Build a PC slightly over my budget with relatively unstable parts. B) Build a PC slightly over my budget with stable but out-dated parts. C) Purchase a pre-built PC under my budget with very out-dated parts. D) Continue to run my 1000mhz Celeron I cannot afford a decent mid-range gaming PC. I'm looking for something to get me on the right path and upgrade later. I can get a better motherboard and cut back to 512mb ram or I can get a motherboard that might be faulty and get 1gb of ram.
if you can go without the mouse and usb...the rig i specced you seems like the way to go, othrwise, go with option b...it would be preferable to upgrade when you can afford it as long as the rig is stable....as opposed to upgrading because you must because something failed
I'd say build a PC slightly over budget with out-dated parts. Athlon64 X2s can be had for extremely low prices, which although they lag behind core 2 duos would let you get a decent motherboard and ram. Just my personal opinion, either way its going to rock in performance over your celeron. Get a decent AM2 board, 1 or 2gb of ram depending on what you can afford, and a 3800+ X2. Much more affordable then a Core2Duo.
If you do want to go with an X2 go look at Newegg... they have an unbelievable deal right now for a 3600+ X2 with a nice Biostar Tforce 550 motherboard for $150 together (as a combo). That's less than the cheapest Core 2 Duo and you get both the motherboard and the CPU. It's a great OCing combo too.
I've never used AMD before. How does this compare with the Core 2 Duo? With this setup, I was able to get 1gb of memory and get an nvidia 8800gts and still be just under budget. Any opinions?
C2D is significantly better, but how much you'll notice really depends on the application. Keep in mind that if you overclock the X2 you could potentially beat a factory-clocked C2D's performance, though. AMD has a reputation for running cooler, quieter, and more power efficient than Intel, and in my experience their processors are more reliable. I'm not sure how much this is the case compared to the C2D though, since Intel seems to have improved vastly in that area compared the far too hot and clock speed-obsessed P4.
