After only 8 months of service, I am retiring a perfectly functional AMD Athlon 64 motherboard and processor. The reason? My need for speed. The replacement? Check it out:
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro-SLI. What I like about this board is that it offers IEEE1394b, the next generation of FireWire with speeds of up to 800 Mbit. I also like the fact that I can go SLI if my graphics need a boast later down the road. Gigabyte makes some of the best motherboards out there. I've never had a single problem with any Gigabyte board. Fast. Stable.
Processor - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+. This processor is damn fast, and with dual cores, it's even faster, especially for working with the 20,400 digital images I manage. Superb gaming will be just a plus.
Video - BFG Tech GeForce 7900GS 256 Mb PCI-E x16. This is a damn fast video card, it's even overclocked right out of the box. Can't beat the warranty of BFG Tech either; we're talking lifetime.
Memory - 4 Gigabytes PC3200 DDR400. When it's time to move up to Windows Vista Ultimate Edition, 4 Gigabytes will be especially nice to have; not to mention, with the intense work I do on digital images. Oh yeah, gaming will scream too.
Power Supply - I am sticking with my Antec NeoHE 550. This is one of the most highly rated power supplies. It runs quite cool, it's quiet, and it's stable as all hell.
Power Supply Update - After further research, I determined that my Antec NeoHE 550 will not be able to sufficiently supply the 22 amps required by the new video card. The Antec NeoHE 550 12V rails are only rated at 18 amps. The new video card requires a minimum of 22 amps. So that being said, I am going with the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 EPS12V. We're talking up to 60 amps on a single 12V rail here, folks.
Case - I am sticking with my Antec P-160. I love this case, and I don't plan on retiring it anytime soon. It's nice and roomy. Getting to the inner workings of my computer is a breeze, and the motherboard tray makes system upgrades a snap. I also like the fact that it just looks plain cool.
Well, that about wraps it up. The parts will be on the way soon. It's going to be fun. I'm looking forward to benchmarking this new beast once it's all put together.