hey, I'm trying to set up a new computer and looking for a good abit mother board. my budget is kinda limited so I decided upon two mbs. the AW8 and AL8.

Which one do you think would work better ?

Here's a link to both mbs:

AW8: http://www.abit-usa.com/products/m [...] &model=279


AL8: http://www.abit-usa.com/products/m [...] &model=281

What will be the usage of your computer? What are the rest of the components?

I want to boost up its performance. I use it for work and I need things to get done fast. I also use it for games on weekends.

Other components I had in mind:

a 64bit Intel P4 3.4 GHz
512 ddr2 ram (for now)
new sata hard disk.

Nvidia GF7800GT / GF6800GT

or

Inno3d GF7800GT / GF6800GT

What type of work? What programs are you running? Lots of multi-tasking?

AMDs s939 gaming performance - and most business applications - is superior to Intel LGA 775 CPUs. Intels newer 65nm CPUs they have taken a step in the right direction as far as performance so if you want to stick with Intel then that is the route I would suggest to you.

I had 2 friends switching from Intel to AMD and they all got fried. They bought it from 2 different stores and they all broke after 2-3 months.

I don't want to be the third one ... so I'm sticking with Intel

I heard some rumours saying that WinXP won't run on Intel's 64 bit processors. Is that bogus ?

Your friends have had some bad luck with AMD I run 6 amds right now some as old as 3 years and have never had a problem. i am running a 3800+ x64 for gaming and it runs cool with the stock fan on it and have had no troubles with it either

The stores don't matter as much as the mfr of the boards. What were their system configs? Sounds like they either bought low quality parts or didn't do a great job assembling what they did get. [shrug] If you want to stay Intel then I would seriously suggest you look at the new 65nm Intel chips instead of the P4 LGA775 Prescotts, but your best price/performance will be with AMD.

I read about the 65nm ... it will be available in Q1 2006. I didn't really understood much. Will there be a new motherboard for these ? Or what's the deal? And do you have a price info ?

Newer equals more expensive. I use an older via chipset on my amd setup, and have had no problems. The new Intel cpu hasn't been released yet, but the boards for it will probably cost more. When you see it on pricewatch, then you can compare prices for yourself. If you want Intel now, look at the 6xx series cpus with 64 bit and hyperthreading support. For board prices, check pricewatch under motherboards and type "dual core". The prices are pretty reasonable. I use Fry's combo deals, where the board is almost free. They had the 630 with board for only $159 last week.

Whatever happened to your friends can't be blamed on AMD. It was probably some poor PSU or motherboard that caused the problem.

Anyway you are making a mistake buying an Intel.

Current AMD dualcores even beat the upcoming Intels.

AMDs are faster, cooler, draw less power and are cheaper. The only thing Intel are superior at is encoding/decoding movies.

And even that advantage is based on the program you are using.