ASRock opinions

Yeah I was looking to buy ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939 ULi M1695 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail, are they about the same?

I believe so yes... I read alot of reviews, some bad, some good, like most things these days,,, mine turned out to be good so far

I don't realy like mine. I guess if you don't want a exteme overclock it's fine. I moded mine for Vcore and Vdimm, but the cold boot issues drive me mad.

Hay but with AM2 support, both AGP and PCIe it realy is upgradable.

I got one for about 2 months now and I am very satisfied with it, they are not the fastest around but for the price (99$can) it is a very solid performer. sata + raid + sata2 for the price is  

I was going to get a PCIe card for it, but I replaced the POS with a Biostar Tforce6100-939. It has SATA2 RAID, MUCH better sound(with the same chip?) okay video, and more voltage. If you did not know, the sound on the DualSATA2 is realy bad.

In my opinion NEVER go with onboard sound. Better to spend 25$ and get an OEM soundblaster. Onboard sound always suck compared to addin card.

I listen to internet radio on mine, and it made it sound realy bad. But even a X-FI will not make internet radio sound better than a well designed onboard sound. In my opinion NEVER use the DualSATA2's onboard sound!

buy a SoundBlaster Live! it like 20 bucks

The one I was referring to is only 65 dollars --- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681...

Is it the same thing?

I get alot of static in my sound when i move my mouse and such.. So i think i will buy a soundcard. i didnt know you could get them so cheap tho.

If you search around, you should be able to get a Soundblaster Audigy value for $40 or less - that would be the better option. I've seen some good deals like that on Benbargains.net lately.

I just started looking around, im in canada and so far i found the Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! 24-Bit Sound Card for $49.95 .. rip off i think.

See. The problem is I already went about 300 dollars over my limit.. so i might take it easy for awhile...

I bought that same asrock board refurb from newegg and worked fine untill i put a pci-e card in it and then i found out the pci-e didn't work. Darn refurb. Friend has one though and he loves it he is running a pci-e 6800gs in it right now and used to run a 9600pro. Runs great just don't get it refurb. Oh and the sound didn't bother me while i had it but i am only running old packard bell speakers lol.

I understand over-budget and price differences between here and CA.

Sure it's not just incompatible with the PCIe card? I had a Rosewill 9600 that did not work in mines AGP slot. I had to use a ATi 9200. My AIW 9600 worked fine too.

Yeah it was compatible because it was my friends 6800gs   lol. And it worked fine in his. Also tried a 7800gt. Just a problem with the board, you take a chance getting a refurb so i just rmaed it lol.

I bought a second DualSATA2 referbished, it had a bad VRM. Vcore went up and down so much it was unstable at stock speed. I sent that back. The other two mobos I bought refurb(A Asus P5P800 for $46 and Biostar Tforce6100-939 for $43) are working fine.

Ive had this board for about 6 months now and i must say that i am very satisfied with it. Overclocking wise, i now have my Opty 165 in there running at 2.4Ghz @ 1.375 volts, HTT 266x9...thats about the limit unless you use a modded bios from OCW. Im kinda dissapointed that there arent a whole lot of voltage options in the bios, but thats what you get with a budget board. All in all, i would definetly recommend this for anyone that needs to bridge the gap between AGP->PCI-e or S939->AM2.

Good to know.

Now I can spend 400 dollars and get the dual motherboard and a nice processor and my computer will be as good as new.

Will I need a new power source too? http://www.xoxide.com/35tuposu.html

That is the exact one I have, I think 350w.

no no no get At Least 450W PSU.. I got a 500W

Depending on how much other hardware you are running in your system, a 350W brand name PSU might do it, but if you have a high powered video card, a few hard drives, an optical drive or 2, and plan on overclocking at all....you will need more than 350W IMO. I cant stress enough that it is highly recommended to not cheap out on a PSU, it will hurt you more than anything, especially if you plan to overclock.

IIRC he has a 6800GS that he will be putting in the rig. I'd trust an Antec TP380W to do it, but would be more comfortable with a Fortron 450W or maybe even a Fortron 400W.

Hmm okay it is only 50 bucks I might as well. Alright, so 50 dollars for PSU, 65 for the motherboard, and like 300-400 for a CPU. Do you think an AMD X2 4200+ would be a nice choice? I definately want something to last for a while.

Then that should be it I hope. 1280 ram, with an extra slot to get another gig sometime, a dual core 4200+ processor, a 6800GS AGP video card, a 450watt PSU, and the AGP/PCIe motherboard.

Does that look okay as far as upgrading my computer goes?

This is my case by the way. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681...

Hopefully I dont need a new case too =/

Let me know if I do =p

Sounds good, I got a Athlon 3700+ and that is plenty. id will do my for awhile.. the 4200 will do you a long time.

That X2 4200+ should be a nice processor, but if you want to save a bit of money, you could go for an opteron 165. Same dual core, the opty has 1mb cache as opposed to 512kb on the X2, 1.8ghz as opposed to 2.2, but you can overclock to 2.2 and beyond quite easily. On the same note, i guess you might be able to overclock the 4200 to higher speeds as well, i just havent read too much on X2 overclocking. If you are going to run at stock speeds with no desire for overclocking, either will be awesome, but get the 4200 if you can afford it.

Yeah I dont know too much about X2 or any of them for that matter. It just seems like a decent speed, and I've been told to get dual core. Hmm, I guess I will read up on overclocking them when I get it.

By the way, anyone know how high I could crank my AMD 2000+? As long as it doesnt fry everything else, or completely become completely ruined I dont mind. I should have a new processor in a few months anyway.

Field Value
CPU Type AMD Athlon XP, 1666 MHz (12.5 x 133) 2000+

and my motherboard is:
Field Value
Motherboard Name Asus A7N8X-X (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DDR DIMM, Audio, LAN)

in case you need to know that too. I actually think the CPU default speed was 100mhz, and not 133... but that is how it was when I got it so I just left it be. Is it worth screwing around with or should I just wait till I upgrade?

I have the same processor at home with an asus a7n8x-e deluxe motherboard but i dont have a harddrive for that system so i dont know how high it will go. When i got that system it was all i had so i didnt want to take any chances overclocking it because i didnt have a backup. But now that i have a little more experience with oc'ing, when i get a little extra cash i will pick up a new hdd and test it. Off the top of my head, with no research done...i would assume with decent air cooling you should be able to hit 1.8-2.0Ghz and it would give you a bit of extra headroom, but if you are inexperienced with oc'ing then i would probably suggest to wait till you get your new system and then learn on the old one.

I'd say just get the 3800+ X2, bump the HTT to 260~274 (need OC workbench beta BIOS to go over 274.) With the money you save get a X-Fi!