I need you guys advise on new m/board...

[Mini-Me]

Hi all.
:)

I have decided to build a new PC, with a new m/board.

I wanted to be able to use an AMD Athlon 64 socket 939 CPU, and PCI-E graphics card.

I went looking, but there are so many boards to choose from, I now feel lost.
There are hundreds of different board, and they all do things a little differently, so I left the sites feeling a little dizzy, trying to work out what was best.

Those of you who have read my posts before now know what I use my PC for, but just to recap, what I need to be able to do is:

- Run XP-pro(with 64-bit update)
- Use an AMD Athlon 64 CPU (socket 939)
- Play a few games like MS Flight Simulator, Need For Speed, etc
- CAPTURE AND EDIT VIDEO - this is vitally important
- Archive and play DivX movies
- Archive and play MP3 and other music formats
- Have the ability to have at least 2GB of RAM

I'm currently looking at buying the MSI K8N SLI Platinum nForce 4 Chipset SLI Motherboard, and an MSI Geforce 6200 PCI Express 128MB HDTV NX6200-TD128ESP PCI-E VGA card.

My primary reason for going with the MSI graphics card, is it should be a perfect mate for the MSI mainboard, so this(in theroy!) should mean that it will work with the least amount of operational stress.

My current machine uses an MSI mainboard(the KM4M), and I have had a very good run from it - with the exception of the AGP card problems of late(see my other thread), so I am inclined to check out what they have first...

Any thoughts or suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks!
:)


MM.

[poppy]

Have you checked out saphalline's sticky:

http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=39018

He is going to be expanding on it within a few days.

[Mini-Me]

Thanks - reading it now - no, I had not seen it, but then, i'd looked at so many sites about m/boards, I was getting a little tired - thanks for the link. MM.

[Mini-Me]

OK guys, seems that I am on the right track with MSI for a mid-range machine, that is not a super-computer or a full-on game machine. I'll get the MSI board and PCI-E card within the next few days, unless someone here tells me this is NOT a good choice...

[jlreich]

I believe Sahpalline is in the middle of updating that sticky. He mentioned in another thread he was going to expand some of the catogories quite a bit. So you might want to wait for a day or two to see what changes there will be. ;)

[PrntRhd]

I moved this to Buying and Upgrading out of the Core Hardware Help forum.

[saphalline]

I will finish my update tomorrow morning. Tired now - spent a lot of time on it - very massive list now - although not as massive as it could be! ;) Too many frickin' numbers spinning in my head...

[i an not a nerd]

Ahhh, the 6200 is terrible for games. i would reccomend a 6600 or ati radeon x800 xl.

[saphalline]

I just emailed classicsoftware with my update, so as soon as he gets back my sticky will be updated with all the new goodies! :D

As for your mobo, MM, are you going to use SLI? If not, I recommend the non-SLI MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130484) for about the same money. You lose SLI, but gain many more ports and options that you will probably actually use, unlike SLI. For vid card recommendations, wait for my update...