Best buy for $250, and will a US-bought board work in Oz?

D1ffuse

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Mar 18, 2007
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Okay, here's the dilemma.

My AGP graphics card has gone bang and I'm thinking PCI-e. Going to take advantage of this opportunity to upgrade an ailing ASUS P4P800-e motherboard.

I'm looking for the best bang-for-my-buck full size motherboard to run graphics intensive programs (Adobe suite) and games.

Existing hardware I'm looking to bring over:
Intel 2.4GHz Pentium 4
3 x SATA hdd
2gb PC2700 333MHz DDR333 memory
Sony DVD-RW
SB Audigy soundcard

I'm probably going to buy an nVidia 7900GT graphics card with 512mb onboard mem.

I'm based in Australia and am about to travel to the States (New York) the first week of April. Prices seem cheaper Stateside even after the currency conversion.

Is there any reason an American-bought motherboard won't work back in Oz?
 
Theres no reason I can think why it wouldnt.

I strongly suggest getting a cheaper gfx card and a new processor, like an E4300. There pretty cheap at frys when there on rebate, and there pretty much always on rebate, sometimes they'll even throw in a mobo. The performance boost will be insane, plus, socket 478 is dead, lgs775 is the future. It would be much wiser to skimp on the mobo for now and get a C2D then to pour money into an expensive socket 478 mobo and keep your current cpu.
 
How many ways can you make your computer life complicated?
1. A mobo won't care about Aussie voltage and frequency, but your power supply may.
2. Returning defective products back to the U.S. will be a biatch at best.
3. Socket 478 boards are hard to find as they are obsolete. The good ones, (like your original board) are long long long gone. You will be lucky to find something with a Via or SIS chipset. It will have an AGP 4x/8x graphics slot.
4. There are no longer any boards with socket 478 AND PCI-E. A few were marketed primarily for non-U.S. markets only. Your new board will have an AGP 4x/8x graphics slot.
Sell the P4 and memory if you can.
Keep all the drives and the sound card. Buy the rest new either locally or from a source that ships to your home area.
 
Thanks Newf and apt403 for your advice. I'm going to wimp out and get an AGP graphics card to replace the bung one so I can take my time and buy an all-new PC sometime in the next 12 months.

Cheers all.