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[PsiFire]

Okay. So I'm fairly sure my Asus a8n-sli motherboard shit the bed. This is the second one I have had where the chipset fan died and started to produce errors.I went looking for a replacement motherboard on eBay but the prices for used a8n-slis is rediculous. I just watched a Premium sell for $112.50.

Anyways, I took a quick look at egghead and it seems pretty obvious by the prices that I should just spec out a new system and get something fresh.

I figure on getting a DFI Infinity board that takes AM2 CPUs.

Would appreciate suggestions on the CPU to get. Is AM2 a good way to go? (I'm not looking for the latest and greatest, just something a step above my 939 Athlon XP 3000+ Winchester.)

Should I get an Opteron or an Athlon X2?

What CPU fan should I get? Zalman seems a hot brand.

Looking to keep the CPU under $100. Motherboard is about $100. Memory would be another $120. I'll reuse the GPU, case and drives I have now.

[PsiFire]

Here is what I've come up with so far:

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136020
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146565
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103774

Was also toying with the idea of bumping the CPU a little higher (twice as much as the one I've selected)
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819103771
The higher speed and the better cache make it a little more attractive.

[AMDinside]

While I am a fan of AMD, I have to admit Intel's CPU's are nice.

According to Tom's Hardware the Pentium Dual-core is one of the best CPU's for the money.  They are amazing overclockers and are dirt cheap.

[PsiFire]

Yer an AMD fan? I would have never guessed.

Any suggestions on a motherboard brand to buy and what CPU level of Intel to look into?

[PsiFire]

Well, I just looked at the 2007 CPU charts and I gotta say, AMD is still looking like a better choice. I'm comparing the 5600+ Windsor that I chose in my first setup with an Intel E6420 and E6600 Conroe which both fall very closely to the 5600+ on many of the benchmarking tests. The Intel CPUs are nearly twice the price as the comparable AMD CPUs. Looking into the motherboards next....Gigabyte seems to be the way to go for Intel boards.

[PsiFire]

Gigabyte Motherboard it is.....more reviews and better reputation for this generation of board. Here is my (most likely) final setup:

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128014
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146565
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103771

I'll put the order in tomorrow unless someone has suggestions.

[kryogenix]

I can at least vouch for Gigabyte's RMA quality I guess. I had an gigabye AMD mobo that failed to POST after a month or so. It took a while to get a hold of a person by phone, but the RMA process was pretty smooth and I got a replacement in about 2 weeks.

[PsiFire]

Two weeks? Ick. Ah well, hopefully I won't have to RMA it. It's pretty much the same process for Asus.

[AMDinside]

I've lost confidence in Asus motherboards ever since I had one the never worked right even after RMA-ing it.

I currently use a BFG motherboard (rebranded chaintech) and it has worked flawlessly for me for over 2 years.  I have had Gigabyte boards in the past and they are great as well.

[coldflame]

I use a Foxconn motherboard, and while it lit on fire due to my error, it still works flawlessly.
So I'm foxconn for life.

[Flippy10x]

ASUS is hit or miss sometimes. I've had ASUS Motherboards that have overclocked amazingly, and lived years on end. Then I had two that died after 2 months of being dead-new.

DFI and Gigabyte are good stuff as long as they're taken care of correctly. 

[PsiFire]

I definitely  take care of my stuff. I don't even overclock my CPU/Memory. The problem that I have had with both of my a8n-sli boards is that the chipset fans on them locked up due to gummed up brushes, and failed. So likely the chipset fried. I first noticed a problem when my secondary SATA hard drive started showing up as CHS instead of LBA. Then i started getting random BSODs on resuming from hibernation. Then the BSODs became more frequent. Changing to a heatsink/fan combo on the chipset only seemed to make it worse. Before the memory tested fine, now the memory, half is fine, the other half tests with errors. So who knows.

So I ordered the new system early this morning. Hopefully it shipped today and I'll have it Friday (go newegg).

In a nutshell I have the following I wish to see off to good homes:

Athlon XP 3000+ Winchester w/ HS and Fan -$10
Chipset Block (all copper) and fan - $25
4x 512mb Crucial Ballistix Sticks (DDR400 - 184-pin) - $??? - Make offer
Asus a8n-sli motherboard - possibly fried - might be salvagable - Free

[coldflame]

I'll take the mobo.

[PsiFire]

You able to pick it up or you want me to ship it to you? (I'd have to charge you for the shipping).

[PsiFire]

Awesome. I love newegg. I ordered the stuff on tuesday morning and had it on my doorstep Wednesday afternoon.

I setup the stuff and it works flawelessly. The Gigabyte motherboard is well laid out and works great, TONS of BIOS options and a feature rich driver CD. I was up and running in under 2 hours.