New computer

[BrianG]

OK, so the Intel vs AMD "war" is still going strong eh? Well, as I'm not into hardcore gaming, a dual core CPU that is plenty fast and doesn't double as a space heater is more important than which is fastest. My main rig is using an Athlon64 on socket 754 (yeah, that's old) on 1GB of DDR400 RAM. The motherboard is a Gigabyte with a Via chipset. At the time, this mobo had the best integrated components; SATA RAID along with 4 IDE ports, 6 USB, 1Gb LAN AND 100Mb LAN, etc.

Anything here strike anyone as a good bang for the buck, but yet a little higher up on the performance scale? Still undecided if I want to build my own (usually expensive) or get a customized pre-fab unit. I would rather not run Vista, but it would make me more...ummm... "legal" than I am now using XP.