WAY OT: Some advice from the Nerds in the group:

I would suggest you post this in alt.comp.hardware and/or alt.comp.homebuilt You will get much more meaningful and informative replies.

Are YOU a gamer or a surfer?

What CPU are you using now? And which Dragon Ultra Black is it? (There are two for the AMD based board...)

??? You should get ram that runs at the same speed :/

WHY use Celery based cpu's??? You'll be happier with a *real* cpu ;-)

If getting the fastest cpu that your current motherboard supports doesn't seem to be a good option, then spend the extra and get the Pentium D or Athlon 64 cpu (and get matching sticks of ram, too!)

...

Now days I wouldn't bother building a computer with component parts. You can buy them all ready to go for very little. Example, I purchased an XP machine, AMD3100 w. 40 meg HD, memory, a decent video card and XP home edition and it all came to $200 after I got my rebate back. This summer I picked up a nice 17 inch LCD display and after my rebate comes in I'll have $140 in it. If you have a Micro-Center near they have these deal all the time and also have a bunch of mother boards if you like to go that route.

More of a surfer, business user, software antagonist (easiest way to describe my job!) and musician.

Also currently an amateur photog; I used to be semi-pro, but that was a while ago...

KT400 VIA chipset with the 400MHz FSB.

They will play together at the DDR 400 speed, but the MB only allows 512M of DDR400.

I had the Kingston 256, and bought the Crucial, and then bought more Kingston so I could set the bus speed back to 217.

The ONE good thing about that SOYO MoBo!!

Yeah, I think I'll skip the Celeron. It was 'cheap' at $44.

I can get an OEM Intel P4 for about $100 more, 800MHz FSB at 3.2GHz.

This seems to be the way I am leaning...

It is a Socket "A" (4??) and the chips are GONE!

The Pentium D really isn't that good, and it runs really hot like other Netburst CPUs from what I've been told.

You're better off with an AMD CPU at the present time. (This will probably change as the Core 2 Duo chips come out.)

There are even better deals out there.

Makes me wonder how they can make any money. No rebate to fool with either.

A Socket A MoBo?!?!?! Noly Crap! I have a Socket A MoBo...you can't get them OR the chips any more, or I'd just pop in an Athlon XP 3200+!!!!

I've had an AMD 386/40; first machine I built, then an Intel 486DX33 clocked up to 50MHz, and then an AMD k6 400 clocked up to 450MHz (ran the damn thing for 7 years! The only reason I built a new one was because the KB connector went south. If I put a USB KB in it it would live again!)

Then I built my AMD Athlon XP 3 years ago, with Kingston HyperX RAM, PC3500, clocked to 217MHz. Runs well and is plenty fast, but the SOYO MoBo it a PITA. I ran the HyperX at 217MHz (433MHZ) and the CPU at 2.08GHz, and it ran fine on Linux or W2K until I loaded XP, then started crashing. I can run Linux Full Bore, but XP doesn't like the speed!

The Intel chips are finally starting to outrun the AMDs after a long time of AMD Dominance.

Basicall, I'm running from the MoBo, and right now, Intel seems to have the Hot Setups for under $500.

But you have to admit that this is a lot of computer for $150.

The point about no rebate is a good one too.

A better deal than I got for sure, bigger hard drive ect. Thing to keep in mind too is these computers are most likely made in the same factory.

You can still get Athlon XP 3200's, 3000,2800,etc, new or used, on Ebay.

There's no such thing as a Duron 2.8 Ghz. The fastest and the last one they made was 1.8 Ghz, with 266 Mhz Front Side Bus. Maybe it's overclocked.

I kind of doubt it's overclocked. There's so little margin on this that they're not going to waste time fiddling around with that kind of thing. I'd imagine it was a typo.

If I was in the market for a new PC, I'd shoot them an e-mail and ask.

I would guess it's a Sempron, which is the last of the Socket "A" series.

I love the processor, it's the SOYO MoBo I'm trying to get away from! It had all the right pieces, but the execution wasn't there. Shame, because you can clock the hell out of EVERYTHING; the biggest problem is that even with 3 DDR (3x184) RAM sockets, you can only run 512M at DDR400. If you try to put in more, it crashes at anything above 166.

Looks like an Asus A8V, K8T800 Chipset, AGP 8X, DDR 400 MoBo with an Athlon +3800 Venice CPU. All the banchmarks place this chip near the top, and at $145 it keeps up with Pentiums ~$225-300! It fall on it's face in the CPU Drystone/Whetstone test that measure JUST the CPU, but in all the tests using apps it performs as well as some of the more expensve Intels (most of the test results hover around a 3.2GHz Northwood, and it costs $300!!!) and it outperforms similarly priced Intels.

I JUST BOUGHT an 8X AGP card, and bought some Kingston HyperX PC3500 RAM a couple months ago, so I want something I can use these pieces in for another couple years. By then the Next Best Thing will be out, and the price of evereything else will hit the deck.

Now, just gotta stay away from Windows 'Vista'...