Fry's mobo combo deal

Hardware and technical stuff
1

I’ve been looking to swap out my motherboard for a little while; the onboard fans are starting to sound scary and I’ve outgrown the CPU (SOYO SY-K7V Dragon Plus and Athlon 1900+).

I just want something fast enough to make a future purchase of a [probably] Radeon 9800pro worthwhile. I wanted to try to get all clever and get a mobo that would take the memory I currently have, but I don’t think I can pull that off.

Anyway, the Fry’s deal that appeared in today’s paper pits a 2.53ghz P4 ($129) against an Athlon 64 2800+ ($169). I’m trying to stay under two hundred dollars, do both fit the bill.

I tend to lean Athlon because I like the fact that they exist, I just don’t know anything about the relative benefits of the 64. I tried reading the 64 thread below, and all the numbers made my eyeballs bleed a little bit.

The P4 here has a 533mhz FSB, and the mobo has a P4X400 chipset. Don’t know about the chipset of the Athlon.

Can anybody help? Or do I need to go in and get more info?

Thanks.

“If you ever post anything on that website again, I will shove the motherboard so far up your ass…”

-Amanpour

2

Careful, fry’s often bundles awful mobos with those deals.

3

Nevermind.

Well, the Athlon’s out. It’s a DFI K8M800, which is a miniATX form factor (I think) and so won’t fit in my tower anyway (again…I think). I’m also not interesting in effing around with onboard video.

The P4 is a mobo by PC Chips…the M950. Haven’t found anything about it other than it costs around forty bucks.

I’ll keep looking. Sorry to waste your time.

“What a senseless waste of human life.”

-Amanpour

4

Vomit. You can get a retail A64 2800+ for $132 and a decent mobo for around $70 at Newegg. Chaintech, Gigabyte and Epox all have NF3 250 boads for under $73. PC Chips is ghetto trash and the A64 is faster than that P4.

Anyway, that’s the upgrade I did to replace my 1.4 Ghz Athlon. I went with the Epox, but the Chaintech is supposed to be good as well.