New Comp

[Wyatt]

If your looking and have time to spend do some reading. I would start here www.tomshardware.com. I personally only use ASUS boards. THough sometimes there is an issue with they kind of RAM you can put on those boards (they sometimes get a bit finicky). CHeck the allowed, or tested memory for each board on the ASUS website. That way you know your good to go. Micron is the best and that you can not go wrong with. Corsair is great too, ther is a brand that is an offset of Corsair called GEIL we have been trying lately with great results for the money you spend. I would focus on better RAM and mobo as to the size of the proc. Unless your doing editing or rendering of video. But if you are doing that you wouldnt be using an AMD. For gaming I would look into the Barton core 2500, 2600, 2800. For the prices of those chips right now you can get good bang for the buck. THis leaves you more money for a better Video Card. If you have money to blow get the 3200 barton. If I were you get a figure in your head on what you want to spend then buy based on those specs.
THings to look at:
-Asus A7N8x-delux-E (the E being important as they changed network cards on this version for a more stable performance.)
-follow the ram specs above. What ever you decide get paired or the same size RAM. By this I mean clock speed(PC2700, PC3200, etc) and size(128,256,512,gig sticks) Resaon you want the same is that you can run the memory in DUal DDR mode. There are 2 blue slots that you would put the memory in. THe benefits here are amazing. Best analogy is like running Raid 5 RAM....VERY FAST.
-video is preference. Lots of peeps are going PCI-e, then there are the motherboards that suppport dual video cards link together (like the old Voodoo5500 bad ass...idea here is basically dual proc's and ram) Expensive though cuz you need two cards minimun and you can see how this would get expensive.
-sound you cna run onboard but I would recommend seperate card, less on the board the better...use the other bus as you wont have many things on the PCI slots.

Those are jus a few suggestions that I can think of off the top of my head. Hardware is ever chagning though so do the reading I have been out of the reading lately as my machines are fine since I only use one machine with windows on it (game machien which doesnt see much action these days). As we know NIX does need much to run efficiently. ANywho--- Iam gonna go sleep.