Hello Everyone,
I am new to these message boards as well as this website and I was wondering if anyone might be able to help me decide on some hardware that I have been looking at. First I must start off by saying that I work in the field of architecture and work with 3DS Max a lot to do 3D renderings of my projects. I also work in the multimedia field and do a lot of editing with programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator as well as video editing with Premiere and Encore. I aslo design web pages with Dreamweaver and Flash. I am looking to upgrade my personal system to better handle the newer software.

I typically run AutoCAD and 3DS Max simultaniously on dual monitors. I was considering upgrading to one of the new Intel Pentium D processors because of the benchmark results that I have seen for the 3DS Max rendering abilities. I also believe that this might be the new direction for a lot of other software in my field.

Unfortunately the one problem that has kept me from upgrading so far is that less than 6 months ago I bought an ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 9600 XT that runs off of AGP. That is the slot that my current motherboard had and I didn't want to upgrade everything at once. I have been looking for quite some time but it seems like all the new Intel boards that are coming out for the Pentium D are running PCI Express. I understand that this is the new way but I just spent money on this video card and would like to keep it running. I am very happy with the performance of the video and am not too crazy about changing it.

I am not stuck on buying an Intel processor but I have only used them in the past and am not sure if I wanted to switch to an AMD processor only because they don't seem to make their own motherboards. I just heard on this website of something that allows you to insert an AGP card into a PCI Express slot but it sounds like it is only working for limited nVidia cards. I am not even sure how this would effect the performance of the graphics card.

In the end what I am looking for is advice on how I should be spending my money. I am not looking to spend too much but I am also not willing to cheap out and buy something that won't last me some time. If anyone has any advice on where I can get something for my current needs or has suggestions of using AMD X2 or a different motherboard for the Intel Pentium D or even if they think that I should just go with a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition or a dual processor motherboard as well then I would greatly appriciate the advice.

Don't hesitate to reply or send me an email at superflybribri@yahoo.com. Any information or suggestions would be of great help to me.

Thank you,
Brian

I currently have a system that was custom built and I have been changing the components on a rotation bases. So far what is left of the original system is the motherboard with an Intel Pentium III Processor and 768 MB of SDRAM. I have changed the drives to three 120 GB Western Digital Hard Drives and a Sony 16x Dual Layer DVD Burner. I also changed the monitor and upgraded to a Dell 20" Widescreen Flat Panel and changed the video card to the ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 9600 XT. Now as you can see I when I bought the graphics card I still had an old motherboard which in return forced me to purchase an AGP card. I didn't want to upgrade every component at once so I have been slowly making my trip around and it seems now that I have hit a wall with this old/new hardware configuration. I am looking to spend in the ballpark of $750 for a motherboard, processor, and RAM. I am looking for any advice that might help me in this situation.

Hey,
I was just looking at that motherboards that I found from a link, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...080#DetailSpecs , to but I never know how to trust what is a good motherboard. I would love to just get an Intel motherboard or something that I know will be reliable. I mean I am not someone who likes to spend money for no reason but a motherboard that is only $60 kind of worries me. I want something that I can rely on. I know that AMD has said that its new X2 processors work on Socket 939 boards but does that mean that I can buy any Socket 939 board? My roommate has one that has an AGP slot that he has never had problems with and I am wondering if I can get that same board and use it with my current graphics card and the new X2 chip. The other thing that I was looking up was the All-in-Wonder cards that ATI makes being that is what I wanted to get and bought. While doing this I realized that six of the All-in-Wonder cards that they make are for AGP while only two of them are for PCI Express. I don't know if this is just because PCI Express is new but the new All-In-Wonder 2006 Edition is also made for AGP. I am wondering also if Intel is planning on coming out with AGP motherboards for the dual core chips in the future or they are just going to say forget it altogether?