Question...

[Saurian]

Ok, so currently I have a P4 3.2Ghz Prescott and a crappy MSI board with a Via chipset which is a total pain in the ass. Don't mind the P4 so much, but the board is driving me insane. So, I've been considering buying a C2D board and putting my processor into it and just buying the ram and graphics card to run it till I get around to getting a E6300 and then a DX10 graphics card like a R600 or something. However, last night I saw this: Athlon 64 3400 Venice + Free S939 board

My question is, would going to the S939 A64 3400 and the optional ECS board Board be a downgrade from my current P4/Via board? Would it play games better? I figure for 120 bucks it couldn't hurt, and I could keep the current parts to build a second computer for like my dad or something like that. Anyways, I just wanted your opinion on it. I wish I could find out whether the ECS board supported overclocking much, so I'd know whether to get cheaper ram or to spring for more expensive ram.

Anyways, let me hear your thoughts. I'm curious.

 

[The_Other_One]

MSI is a much better brand that ECS. I'd take an MSI board over ECS any day. I don't know how good/bad the via chipset is on your particular board, but the quality of ECS boards usally is quite low compared to others.

 

[Saurian]

I'm aware that ECS is perceived as being a lower quality brand, but reviews on the internet have tended to only point out possible interference between the NB chipset/fat and longer PCIe cards. Still, the Via chipset on my MSI board sucks. And I will probably not use MSI again for a motherboard. My main question is just how the difference would be with an Athlon 64 Venice vs a Pentium 4 Prescott.

The diff between boards is decent name brand/crappy chipset and lesser known brand/great chipset. I was also thinking it'd give me the ability to setup my current computer (the P4) as a folding-only machine and leave it in the corner possibly.