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[AMDinside]

I am thinking of upgrading my desktop.  It is currently woefully outdated.  See my sig for proof.  Anyway, I wanted to go the Phenom route, but due to the issue with those chips I decided against it.  I attached my selection of components.  It isn't going to be a complete upgrade since I will still be using me existing hdd, cd, case, and video card.  The video card will be upgraded in the future.

Anyway, does this upgrade seem worthwhile for the cost or should I spend a bit more and get some better components?

[AMDinside]

I also came across this case.  If anyone has a suggestion on a good micro ATX board with an AM2 socket and support for the Phenom chips please let me know.  SLI isn't important to me so losing the second PCIe slot doesn't matter.

[PsiFire]

I personally LOVE my Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 board with the Crucial Balistix RAM and the CPU I got (I forget which but it's close to yours). But YMMV. I don't know much about MSI but Kingston makes sturdy RAM. I just like Crucial because of their no-hassle Customer Service and lifetime warranties.

[coldflame]

I got 2gb's of GSkill RAM, wicked cheap, and it's served me faithfully for about a year now. So I pick them.
As for Micro-ATX boards, with Phenom support, I dunno, I mean, is Quad-Core, really necessary, dual core seems enough for now.

[AMDinside]

I've been very happy with MSI's products, so I am not worried about that.  I am debating if I should just wait and get a Phenom chip once they get that issue sorted out, or if I should even upgrade at all.

[PsiFire]

Start with a low end chip, the upgrade when the price comes down and the issues are resolved.

What issue is it you speak of anyways?

[Detonator]

personally, do you REALLY need to???  not just to keep up w/ the race? to be honest i'm also holding off on getting the phenom too. Personally, if you are fine w/ what you have even though its old, deal w/ it for a few more months since you have dealt w/ it for now . "The Beast" is 7yrs old & i've barely done anything to it. The mobo's down right now & i'm just using a temp pc till i find something more reasonable. I know that by at least Q2-Q3, things should be better & so will prices.

[AMDinside]

The main reason for this upgrade is because I wanted to get a small form factor case.  Rather than getting a case and compatible microATX motherboard to work with my 939 CPU I figured it would be a good time to just upgrade my components all together.

[Detonator]

lol thats understandable. right now AMD's recently started releasing more of its 45nm processors at CeBit

[AMDinside]

They don't even seem to make socket 939 boards any more.

[AMDinside]

I decided to go for the full upgrade.  The whole thing cost about $250.  That included the CPU, MoBo, RAM, and case.

Here's what I got...
Thermaltake LANBOX Lite VF6000BWS
ECS AMD690GM-M2 AM2 AMD 690G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
Transcend JETRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Brisbane 2.2GHz

For $250, I think I got a steal.  And I can probably get back at least $100 selling my old mobo, cpu, case, and RAM.

[coldflame]

you got gypped on RAM, Newegg just released a deal, $40.00 gets you GSkill 2gb RAM, with Free shipping.

[AMDinside]

Link it.  I am sure I can call and exchange before they ship out.

EDIT: Aw, looks like it's already been sent to the warehouse.  Oh well.  Not a big deal.

[AMDinside]

Does anyone know where I can get an adapter that will let me use my socket939 cooler on my new AM2 board?  It seems a lot of coolers come with it but they don't sell it separately.

[GenTsoChiken]

what kind of cooler is it? i would suggest buying a cheapo P.O.S. cooler and swiping the adaptor, other than that, idk.