DescentBB

Ok, here's a list of the parts avialable I have to work with.

2 - ECS N2U400A nForce2 400fsb mobos
1 - Soyo Dragon Plus KT600 400fsb mobo
1 - Asus A7V333 KT333 333fsb mobo
1 - MSI KT3-Ultra 2 KT333 333fsb mobo
1 - AMD 2600+ Barton core CPU
1 - AMD 1700+ T-Bred CPU
2 - 256Mb PC2700 RAM
2 - 256Mb PC2100 Ram
2 - MGE Vigor 400W PSU
1 - Viomax 500W PSU

What I want to do is put together three systems. My main gaming system, my secondary system and a third system for my girlfriend.

I'm going to get an AMD 3200+ CPU and some 3200 RAM for my main system. The question is, should I run the ECS board or the Soyo? I've been running the ECS board with the 2600+ on that system for a while now and it's quite stable.

The secondary system is kind of a no-brainer. I only use it for chat and some surfing, so I figure on keeping it as it is with the 1700+ on the other ECS board.

For the girlfriend I'm thinking of using the Asus board with the 2600+ and the PC2700 RAM. She works solely online selling books and jewelry on Amazon and Ebay and could really use the speed. She's been working with an IBM Aptiva 566 Celeron for way too long. Now, I've found her present system has a 10Gb 5400rpm HDD. Is there some way I can clone her HDD to a newer, bigger 7200rpm drive? I've heard that different speed drives don't like to work together in the same system. I'd really like to get her updated to some new stuff, but I don't want to take the chance of losing everything she has now.

Any and all input will be most appreciated, but please keep it simple. I'm a computer dummy in many respects and know just enough to be dangerous.

norton ghost will image the old drive, which you can put onto a faster drive in the new system.

argh.. nForce2 boards are the way to go with XP chips, but ECS is so.. average at best..

If that was all I had to use, I guess I'd prolly go the ECS route

Just food for thought: ECS is also the same company that makes the PC Chips motherboards, which are the the laughing stock of any and every respectable tech out there. They may have a few good boards here and there, but if you go ECS you really gotta watch what you get.

Just make sure you use the PC2700 with the XP2600+. Having slower memory than the FSB is capable of will only slow your system down. Just use the PC2100 with the XP1700+.

Thanx MD. I will definately keep the CPU/RAM configurations together.

And, yes, I am bit disenchanted with the ECS boards. This is the only nForce2 board they have ever produced and they don't support it. There's nothing on the board and you can't get a utility to show voltages. I'm running both of them now on my boxes, but I'm a bit wary. They seem stable enough, but I think I might try the Soyo board when I upgrade my main system.