About Intel Motherboards

First, you should stick with your great Abit BE6-2. Second, I think the BX is the best chipset, followed by the i815. While the i815 offers AGP4x and the 1/2 AGP/FSB divider, the BX still outperforms it and is compatable with more cards. Third, Celeron II's (as in FC-PGA, ie Coppermine Celeron) are not SMP compatable. Abit made a great motherboard for the earlier PPGA Celerons, the BP6. The fastest of those processors is the 533, but the 366 can often be overclocked to 550, providing superior performance at 100MHz FSB. Easier is the 333 overclocked to 500.

Back to you Tom...

IF you are going to continue to use Socket 370 CPU's, stick with your existing board and upgrade the processor to a Pentium 3 in some flavor or a overclockable Celeron II (566-667 are good choices depending on how fast you intend to go).

If you can find a Pentium III/600EB (or whatever the 100 mhz FSB version is called) that is an exellent choice for overclocking as well.

Investing in the more expensive P3 chips is certainly not worthwhile compared to the current Thunderbird and P4 prices. If you were going to upgrade your mobo anyway, switch to one of these two platforms and you'll be in good shape long term.