What's in a Mother Board .

My current system .
Dell Dimension 4700
Pentium 4 2.8ghz
Intel 915g mobo
1.5g DDR2 ram ( 2 x 256mb + 2 x 512mb) (fresh diagnose lists it as DIMM @ 400mhz)
Western Digital 200gb
Seagate 80gb
M-Audio Delta 1010 (sound card)
Asus Extreme 7800gt

I plan to upgrade my processor to a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Dual Core Processor , firstly would this be a good move ? Secondly I obviously need to need a 939 socket mobo , and can't tell the difference between a AUS$179 (GA-K8NPRO-SLI) and a AUS$320 (DFI LanParty NF4 UT SLI-DR Expert) board , basically I have no idea what I'm looking at as far as mobo's are concerned . I hope some one can explain a few thing about them to me and if it isn't too much trouble please click this and tell what would be the best value one , keeping in mind I plan on keeping the same sound & graphics card , ram and hard drives (both sata)

 

where do u live, as in what country? if you're in the US, newegg.com is the way to go. I believe that tigerdirect delivers to canada if ur there and their prices are alright....That x2 proc is definitely gonna future proof u for a while so pretty much any socket 939 board should do just fine for what u got. Both those boards are pretty good. I'll help u look once u get back to me on ur location....

 

I live in Australia , the site linked above seems to be on average the cheapest I've come accross . And it's store location is pretty convenient for me too . Sounds a little "Cheesy" but help is very much appreciated .

 

it all depends on what you want to do with your computer. Are you ever going to go SLI in the future, what features do u want, etc. DFI boards are good as well as ASUS. I dont really know the quality of the boards from experience or anything, im just going on what ive heard and read, however I do know for sure that ASUS boards are very well made and are reliable with lots of features.

 

As long as you stick with a name brand manufacturer such as Abit, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, DFI, and some others, you should be fine. Also, I would recommend an nForce chipset, like the ones you have already chosen.

 

A nice motherboard will also give you built in advanced features. I bought a nice motherboard for my P4 a few years back (asus p4c800e deluxe). It came with built in ethernet, SATA controller, and built in RAID among other things. I've never used the SATA or even considered the RAID until recently when I bought a new Hard drive and have multiple huge hard drives now. As stated earlier, get a brand name motherboard and stay clear of the super cheap motherboards. The small amount more you pay is well worth it.