I thought that I would pick your brains. I am thinking of upgrading my current system (see 'My System Specs' for details) and replacing the motherboard with this one (see links). At the moment, it is on offer at Maplin and comes complete with processor and 1GB of DDR2-800 (I shall be adding a second stick of matching RAM). What are your opinions on this? I shall be using the majority of my existing components, but will probably upgrade the PSU. I shall also be upgrading my HDD, but will use my current ones initially (I shall continue to use them for storage purposes when I have upgraded). I intend to run Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1.
4 x 4GB DDR3-1600 Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B (16GB)
Graphics card(s)
MSI GeForce GTX770 Gaming OC 2GB
Sound Card
Realtek High Definition on board solution (ALC 898)
Monitor(s) Displays
ViewSonic VA1912w Widescreen
Screen Resolution
1440x900
Hard Drives
OCZ Agility 3 120GB SATA III x2 (RAID 0)
Samsung HD501LJ 500GB SATA II x2
Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 1TB SATA II
Iomega 1.5TB Ext USB 2.0
WD 2.0TB Ext USB 3.0
Intel are certainly the best at the moment [maybe for quite a while with the state of AMD at the moment]. and I'm a long time AMD user
All I would say is that Maplin are not normally the best value I'd try searching on ebay for "motherboard bundle" and go from there. only buy from stores and use the Buy Now, and I'm sure you can save some money :D maybe even get an intel
On a more positive note...Spend a little extra and get something relatively future proof.
The Intel Q9550 (Quad-Core, 2.83 Mhz) is probably your best bet. It'll cost you just under $300 for the processor but the performance is well worth it.
It seems like an older board. You should splash out a bit more but it all depends on your budget.
Regardless of what you spend their will always be a new thing coming out for the same price as what you bought your old one.
Example, I bought my 8800GT for $300 AUD in early February and the 9 series came out so now i could pick up a NVIDIA 9800GTX+ and still have some money over.