Upgrade Help. Intel to AMD system.

[motoman]

Due to some ongoing problems with my current P4 3.2 northwood Asus P4P-800E Deluxe AGP system I've decided to go ahead and make some changes. I can use the EVGA step-up program on my 7800GS AGP and get a 7900 GT CO Superclocked PCI-E card so that is not a problem. I have two gigs of G-SKil PC-3200 RAM. Hard drives and optical drives can all be reused and I have an Antec case and tru-power 550w power supply.

Basically I need a MB and CPU. Most of the AMD stuff is greek to me but I want something faster or equal to my P4 3.2 (no jokes)... So I was thinking about either the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (I've always had good luck with ASUS boards) or one of the DFI boards.

I was looking at the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ also. Any other thoughts on CPU? This was in my price range but anything cheaper is ok to. Which AMD chip is in the same basic league as the P4 3.2?

I doubt I will go SLI in the future but you never know. Any suggestions on non SLI boards would be appreciated. I'm not really into overclocking stuff anymore. I've always had terrible luck and just don't have the time to deal with it. I want something stable and easy to setup.

Can't think of anything else. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Any questions I can try and answer.

Thanks,

Jim

[Lfctony]

An A64 3000+ is pretty much equal to a 3.2 P4, in games that is. But, the 3.2 sports HT which makes it a lot more responsive in Windows. Go with a dual core cpu, or you will be disappointed with multitasking responsiveness. My brother went from a 3.3 to a 3500+ which is faster in games but he doesn't like it that much in Windows.

[tieros]

The best bang for the buck AMD processor isn't always the same. Sale prices can make a big difference.

I usually recommend the x2 3800 for people new to AMD, but the 4200 is a much better deal today at Newegg (other places may have the same sale going on).

3800: 295.00
4200: 355.00
4400: 458.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103547

The 4200 and 4400 have the same clock (2.2GHz), but the 4400 has dual 1M caches vs. dual 512K caches for the 4200. The difference is cache is not worth the difference in cash :D

[a12ctic]

A great, cheap, stable mobo is the msi neo4 -f, i had some problems with it before i updated the bios but its really a great motherboard, comes with a lot of fetures for 75$

[SH0DAN]

That MSI is good after a bios update,I built a great system recently with that mobo(109 CDN) and a X2 3800+(358 CDN/retail) and a one of those funky looking asetek HSF for about 46 CDN,all in a Antec Sonata II.It runs very cool in a large heated house(average temp 25 c) At idle it goes around 39c and full load about 52c to 54 c,but thats at 2.50Ghz ! Fast and stable,the x2 3800 is a steal and very oc'able with a cheap after market HSF.But if you dont want the hassle of a bios flash,I'd go with a newer Gigabyte or Asus.

[motoman]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I got all the information from EVGA on my step-up of my 7800GS OC AGP to the 7900GT SC PCIe so it will be going back today. I'm going to order all my other stuff today in hopes everything gets back for the weekend. Looks like I'll get the following.

Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe. Decided to go all out on the MB just in case I want to go SLI in the future. I looked at the A8N-E as a cheap option with no SLI

AMD 64 X2 4200+ right at $100.00 cheaper than the 4400+

WD 3200GB SATA 3.0 HD

Everything else I'll reuse out of the old system. I figure to make the SATA drive my boot drive and use my two old ATA drives as storage. I assume these will work ok that way?

Since this is my first AMD system and I know there are different drivers and all to install is there a good guide somewhere on what order to install everything?

Anyway that is what I'm looking at. Any advice would be appreciated.

Jim