At 04:26 AM 6/14/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>I submitted this a few days  ago but it never appeared, as far as i know.
>
>   My 1.2 Athlon, XP Pro, 2 EIDE HDD, CDRW,DVD+, -RW  ECS Board, SIS Chipset
>is beginning to show signs of age and I'd like to build another. And my 60th
>birthday is Monday, so I deserve a treat.
>
>I'm looking for recommendations for motherboard, chip and vendors. I suspect
>I want SATA, a fast Graphics card, and Decent Sound, as well as ethernet,
>front USB, firewire and reliability.
>I have only done this chore once, but I feel fairly confident I can handle
>it again.
>All my computers have been AMD, but I'm flexible. Reliability is very
>important.
>I do a lot of graphics work, am fond of games but not as much as I used to
>be, have a cable connection and spend several hours a day using the machine.
>Video editing has intrigued me recently.
>My preliminary research suggests an out fit called Zip, Zoom, Fly is a
>reliable vendor http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Home.jsp
>I admit to being overwhelmed by the choices and appreciate any assistance I
>can get.
>My budget is undetermined at the moment, but I suspect $1500-$2000.00 is
>doable.

While not endorsing a specific brand, many of the newer motherboards have a
lot of features that used to be extra in the past. Abit and Asus make good
boards. Many have onboard features such on ethernet (for your internet
connection), firewire (for downloading movies from a DV cancorder), RAID
controllers (put two or more IDE drives in RAID 0 for increased performance).

If you prefer AMD, then stick with it. $1500 to $2000 should be more than
adequate. Get at least 1G of memory, the fastest processor you can afford,
and a nice video card. The ATI Radeon 9600 or 9800 are nice, or the GeForce
5600. There are higher end models, but they do get pricey, you can probably
carry over your existing video card, drives (fixed and removeable). Decide
later if you want to upgrade them as well. Sometimes a faster processor can
energize slightly older peripherals. You will probably need new memory,
power supply, and perhaps case (if the new power supplies don't fit).


Russ Poffenberger
Credence Systems Corp.
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