[jg4064]

I'm going to do an overhaul on my system by putting these components in:

SiS 661FX/ 964L Motherboard
Intel Pentium 4 Prescott 800mhz w/ 1mb cache
2 x Crucial 512 mb ddr/400
Nvidia Geforce FX 5900

A couple of questions for you guys who know the answers:

1. How am I going to get the windows xp I am using now to mesh with the components I want to put in.....will I have to buy a seperate retail version of Win to get it to work

2. Am not getting a new hard drive....do I need too? I currently am using a Western Digital 100gb that is approximately 1 1/2 yrs. old and has been very pampered, i.e. regular defrag/fresh windows install. Will the HD be fine or should I upgrade that to?

3. Is this upgrade going to give me the speed increase that I am hoping for? Am now using a
P4 2.0A gig w/400 fsb
2 x 256 mb Kingston
Geforce FX 5200 (non-ultra suck a$$ version)

Thanks JG

[fiezk]

It seemes like the mobo you are looking to buy is Micro ATX. This means that it's smaller than the average sized mobo. Make sure that your components will fit, the Geforce FX 5900 is a rather large video card.

1. It depends on what version of XP you have bought. Some will only work with one particular computer (or computer part).

2. No need to buy a new HD unless you feel you want more space. In which case, you can always get one later on.

3. Yes. Especially when it comes to 3D graphics

[AndrewtheGreat]

You should not have any problems with the OS and the hardrive. I do not personally recommend an SIS mobo. Asus or the intel original boards are better. Get a prescott at 3.2 GHz minumum or it isnt much good. Would also recommend an ATI graphics card.

[mrzeeedler]

I Reccomend getting the northwood edition of the processor for a few dollars more. Runs cooler. But like someone else said I reccomend you not get the sis board and get an intel or asus with either the 865 or 875 chipset. Also is your case mirco atx?

[mdshort]

Alright, if windows xp is already installed then all should go well. However if you try to reinstall it with the new motherboard, you'll have to call microsoft and ask for a new key. Make sure you tell them that you got a new motherboard.

I'm not sure but I think you can only renew XP 3-5 times. After that things start to look suspicious. And don't renew XP several times in a short period of time.

[AndrewtheGreat]

Let me explain the thing between prescott and northwood. Northwood is better at around 3 Ghz or less, while the prescott owns all after 3.2 Ghz. The Prescott is also better technology and who cares about heat, get hte stock intel cooling gets the job done on my friends prescott just fine.

[jg4064]

Ok ATI? All the benchmarks that I have seen show that the 5900 performs better than the 9600 which is the max I'm willing to spend for a Vid Card (around $170 Newegg)

Also, I thought that having 1mb cache would be faster than the 512kb that the northwood has....was I wrong or would the difference be small.

Last, my case is an ATX not a micro......so point in the direction of the motherboard I need for my stuff to fit all nice snug.

Thanks JG

[didi]

Bigger cache doesnt mean faster but got advanced in dealing with huge file