Is this an adequate gaming rig base?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...C-pr1c3grabb3r

<font color=skyblue>I will not know nearly enough to give a fair yay or nay...but I see that this has both AGP and PCIe. My personal opinion is that AGP is becoming old news in the gaming world and that the PCIe slot is the only valid slot for today's top of the market vid cards...based on what I think I have learned on IW and read elsewhere...I could be wrong...but I do not think you'll need that AGP slot, so why buy a card with it, unless you intend on using an older card.

Hope I am not too far off track with that one...</font>

[ 03-24-2006, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

Aye it's not bad, there is quite a fan base using that board, depends on your budget really - good budget board. As Larry said, the inclusion of an AGP slot is only worthwhile if you are planning to use your existing AGP card; it's really not worth buying an AGP card these days, you'd be better off just going with a straight PCI-E board, and buying a PCI-E card.

What's the budget?

Cheap. I got this from a build a gaming rig for 500.00 thing, but the reviews are so mixed, I figured I'd better check on it. I can knock about 1/2 the 500.00 off with hardware I already have, but the board, processor, and psu are going to have to be bought. It's really going to be one piece at a time, too, I have a tower that I can disassemble with some of the hardware, cd rom, etc, that I can install to the new machine, but I'd like to spend as little as possible, and still have it be worthwhile.

Spend as much on the motherboard as you can afford. Although you may not use some features today, you might find that down the road you will.

For example, SLI might not interest you right now, but it could in 6 months or a year when the price of video cards start to drop.

I've heard that AGP and PCI-X on the same board degrades performance of both, but I don't have any real world experience.

I just built a new PC with an ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe and X2 3800. I had intended to go X2 4400, but decided to scrimp on the CPU and get a good, future-proof motherboard. Best decision I made.

Yeah, I'd say that's a nice mobo, just a little out of my budgeted price range, unless I sell a lot of cd's this month.

I have a question for you all:

what sources online (American ones are fine, as I'll look for Canadian prices later) would be wise for looking into building a new machine? I was thinking of building myself a proper gaming machine and then giving the stuff from this computer to a friend of my sister's. I would move it into a new case to be sure, but I am thinking I should move on up (yet again) to something bigger and better than what I have already.


Statistics of current machine:
AMD Athlon MP (Thoroughbred) - Sempron 2600+
Core Speed 1752 MHz
Gigabyte GA-7VT600 1394
2 x 512MB DDR PC3200
Gigabyte NVidia GeForce 6600 GT

Personally, I'm starting here:

http://www.newegg.com/home/Computer.asp

There are many local computer parts places, but if I can get the best deal here, then hey, why should I risk the sunlight?

That is the same mobo as I use (in my own build comp). And it works nice for the price and have good forward compatibility as far as I can see. It does the job atleast.
Internet stores tend to be cheaper what i know.

...There are mixed thoughts about having AGP and PCIx16...which includes the fact that most of the time, the mobo company skimps on driver support for AGP cards...