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FP did you decide on a m/b for a p4 combination
Im gonna be facing the same decision soon .

Ive done a lot of research and whilst i find the concept of the p4 a bit disturbing a lot of ppl are only gonna use intel

I upgraded a guys pc using sdram and a gigabyte titan board and a 1.9 gig proccessor and it seemed
lethargic to me

Ive played around a bit with a 1.3 gig p4 and it was gutless a athlon 1.3 would stomp the living shit out of it
It seems like the p4 needs huge clock speeds to do anything

but such is life

Cheers

That's the same impression I've gotten from reviews.

I'm starting to lean towards an Athlon XP system, just a bit leary of compatibility issues and unfamiliarity of the hardware.

If I do, I'm going stock retail - not interested in overclocking and I don't want to futz with heatsinks. From reading posts here seems Athlons are easily damaged by the slightest bit of carelessness installing a heatsink.

I'm in no rush - just feeling the itch. Frankly, everything runs just fine on my P3 1000 w/GF3 Ti-200. I could probably put this off another 4 - 5 months.

My major concern is I can't afford down time on my workstation so if I do go Athlon, I'll probably build a whole new box so I can burn it in for stability testing for a week before swapping it out, then sell the old system. That means more money up front so now it's on the back burner.

FP i know what your concerns are about going to AMD i was there once not quite a year ago... If your seriously leaning towards a XP system... Consider the Iwill XP333... its one hell of a overclocking board but as far as stability goes you cannot beat it... Who cares is the via KT266a chipset is a little faster... This Ali Magik is rock solid... Even for a stock system it would be a good choice for a board... About the only compatabilty problems i've seen with this board are with the Radeon 8500's but those problems are getting worked out... its all ATI's end the latest beta drivers seems to be clearing those problems up... But i know you have one of those Nvidia junkers so you should be safe anyways... And as far as the fragile core goes... I have yet to mess one up and i've probably taken off and changed my HSF setup about 50 times... I think it really takes a major screw up to crack or crush a core on one of these chips... They do run hotter but with a AX7 8045 and a quiet 80mm fan it will cool it damn good...

interesting observations there fp
18 months ago i decided to go and try the amd route after being with intel forever after horror stories and shit loads of research i jumped in the deep end im on my 4th athlon system and honestly ive never had more solid reliable systems once ive learned the intricacies of them
I have always used asus m/b s and win 2k and the things just never give up

Im looking forward to amds new proccessor the thoroughbred which is due out any week now its on .13 micron core and supposed to run in the 2 gig plus range jesus thats gonna give intel heart failiure

Intel seems just so disjointed now like they cant make there minds up on any direction while amd are slowly carving deep into their market shares with solid decisions.

Just my 2 cents

Cheers