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My computer is ancient. I'm currently running a P4 1.8GHz Willamette with 256 megs of PC133 RAM. This will not do. I recently purchased a spiffy new Radeon, but was disappointed to discover that my system could hardly take advantage of it. Performance in modern games is just atrocious-- For example, in the Rome: Total War demo, I get roughly 4 frames per second. My friends seem to have come to the consensus that the most cost-effective upgrade for me would be to replace the motherboard and get half a gig of DDR RAM. So, I have come to you fine gentlemen to ask a few questions.
1. What's the best bang-for-buck motherboard in this range?
A few caveats:
a. My current case is mirco-ATX. If it's cost-effective, I could opt to buy a new case and go for an ATX board, but otherwise, I'll stick with the mirco-ATX
b. Must be compatible with Willamette core. I understand not all Socket 478 boards are.
c. Firewire is preferred, as I'm running a Firewire external hard drive, though it looks like I may have to buy a Firewire card for that.
I did a quick search on NewEgg, and they only list four Socket 478 Micro-ATX boards:
ABIT SG-71
Jetway PT880DMS
Gigabyte GA-8IG1000MK
Intel BOXD865PCDL - out of stock
2. How noticable would the difference in performance be between a board with single-channel memory and one with dual-channel memory? Would it be worth the extra $40 for the Gigabyte motherboard, or would it be a better use of that money to put it towards an eventual new processor? (Or on an ATX case now, or a Firewire card...)
Any assistance at all would be most appreciated.
1. What's the best bang-for-buck motherboard in this range?
A few caveats:
a. My current case is mirco-ATX. If it's cost-effective, I could opt to buy a new case and go for an ATX board, but otherwise, I'll stick with the mirco-ATX
b. Must be compatible with Willamette core. I understand not all Socket 478 boards are.
c. Firewire is preferred, as I'm running a Firewire external hard drive, though it looks like I may have to buy a Firewire card for that.
I did a quick search on NewEgg, and they only list four Socket 478 Micro-ATX boards:
ABIT SG-71
Jetway PT880DMS
Gigabyte GA-8IG1000MK
Intel BOXD865PCDL - out of stock
2. How noticable would the difference in performance be between a board with single-channel memory and one with dual-channel memory? Would it be worth the extra $40 for the Gigabyte motherboard, or would it be a better use of that money to put it towards an eventual new processor? (Or on an ATX case now, or a Firewire card...)
Any assistance at all would be most appreciated.