Advice on buying hardware please

[fatshady]

I need to replace my hdd, motherboard, processor, graphics card as they are all lunched.

I have previously bought MSI under the (mis)comprehension that they produce some of the best hardware - I'm now beginning to question that given that the mobo and gfx card were MSI and have only lasted 3 years....

Who are the best in terms of mobos and graphics card? I want to get AMD64 dual core and an nvidia PCIe gfx card...

Have also used Maxtor drives, but again i'm beginning to question that too - would I be better with Western Digital or Seagate?

Any advice gratefully accepted...

Cheers

Dan

[shadebug]

With processors it's all about how much cash you have to splash. Personally I'm an AMD fanboy but the truth is, if you have enough for a conroe pentium it is the best processor out there. Anything below conroe, however and AMD wins hands down.

For graphics cards, performaance wise ati and nvidia are always outdoing each other but really if you're a linux user it has to be nvidia because the drivers actually work

Maxtor are a bit notorious for terrible build quality, WD and seagate are alright and I've been recommended samsung as decent and it seems to be working fine in my rig at the moment

also, I always thought it was spelt phoenetically

[StarKnight83]

Ive never had a problem w/ my MSI motherboard (its going on 5 years now) graphics id go w/ the nvidia as well hdds dont have much opinion on

[je_fro]

I'm a Tyan fan: http://tyan.com/products/html/athlon.html

[ph34r]

Loved my Tyan dual P2 board, love my MSI dual AMD board. Now if I could just find a pair of AMD 2800 cpus at a reasonable price to upgrade my dual 1.2ghz system....

[stumbles]

I lean toward ASUS for mobos. Currently have the A8N-SLI. I gave up on ATI and use Nvidia. ATI linux drivers always seemed to be an SOB to get installed right. But it's been several years so that might have changed.

Really though, you can't hardly go wrong with AMD.

[Pafnoutios]

ATI linux drivers always seemed to be an SOB to get installed right. But it's been several years so that might have changed.
It has changed a lot, but I don't know if it's changed enough. I still stick with nVidia.

[stumbles]

It has changed a lot, but I don't know if it's changed enough. I still stick with nVidia.

Same here. But if this (http://intellinuxgraphics.org/) is any indication, I just might be switching to Intel.

[bwkaz]

Might want to consider BFG for your video card. Lifetime warranty on most (all?) models, 24x7 tech support, and they actually overclock the card before you even get it. (What's that? Overclocking with a warranty? Sign me up! :p)

(And in case anyone's wondering, no, I have no relationship with them except having bought a video card and power supply.)

As far as motherboards go, I'm really not sure.

Hard drives: Seagate all the way. We've had tons of issues at work with Hitachi and IBM (IBM just resells Hitachi drives -- or at least, the DeskStar models are made by Hitachi), and some Maxtor models. I've had intermittent issues with one of the three WD drives that I have (so I got a Seagate :p). No experience with Samsung.

(Oh, and if you can afford it on the drives -- and want to pay the price premium -- then go SCSI.)

[Davno]

If you look for quality/price AMD 64 3200+ up to 3800+ are selling cheaper than ever and still very performant, a socket 939 mobo to keep the same ram, am2 socket use other type of ram, and a nvidia XFX 6800gt graphic card. I still run all the game out there,. the upgrade on this system would be a dual core cpu and a 7800 or 7900 gpu. Wish i just had the money. :)