Need avice on new mobo selection

[Blatz]

I'm looking to build a new Gaming (mostly) PC. My previous one is 2.5 yrs old and I'm looking for significant improvement.

I'm having a hard time nailing down a motherboard chipset and manufacturer. I have had VERY good luck w/ Soltek. I have personal experience with 3 of their boards and all of them have been flawless. But I'm hearing no buzz about them these days. I know Abit and Asus are pretty safe bets as far as mfg's go.
Also I'm hearing that there is little advantage of an Athlon 64 CPU when compared to an equivilant Athlon XP. And I also can't decide on nForce vs. VIA. I think I know what graphics card I want and RAM is an easy choice. So any advice is much appreciated. Thanks

 

[ChipDeath]

Also I'm hearing that there is little advantage of an Athlon 64 CPU when compared to an equivilant Athlon XP.

<A HREF="http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/doom3-cpu_3.html" target="_new">Guess Again</A>A64 is vastly superior to XP in Doom3. Notice that the 2Ghz A64 3000+ totally blows away the 2.2Ghz XP3200+.

Doom3 is a fairly extreme example, but the A64 is a much better gaming chip.

On chipsets, Personally I'd go for nforce, because VIA has made a lot of Crap in the past so I don't trust them. There doesn't honestly seem to be any real problems with their latest A64 chipsets though.

An A64 + Nforce 250 Gb + Nvidia 6800GT would make a killer Gaming rig.

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Epox 8RDA+ V1.1 w/ Custom NB HS
XP1700+ @200x10 (~2Ghz), 1.4 Vcore
2x256Mb Corsair PC3200LL/1x512Mb Corsair XMS PC4000 2.5-3-3-7
Sapphire 9800Pro (VGA Silencer Rev3) @418/742

 

[Blatz]

ChipDeath...

Thanks. That link was great for info. The vid card at the top of my list was actually the nVidia 6800. So I'll definately take your advice.

Follow-up question.
Do you have any gut feelings about the latest generation of Motherboard manufacturers? Like I said above, I'm partial to soltek, but I don't know who is doing nForce3 better ( if anyone). Thanks

Stranger w/ Candy