On 12/25/2013 09:51 PM, Fred Smith wrote: > Hi all! > > I'm toying with the idea of spending some Christmas money on a new MB > and CPU to upgrade my desktop. to answer such a question is not that easy, other than, to say that most all quality mainboards of today should work and it is really up to the buyer as to what is desired as features. requirements should be of more concern, ie; memory - no less than 2GB0, 4GB0 to 8GB0 better. hdd - 2 drives in RAID, at least 1TB0, higher is better mainboards today will have on board video, some will be dual monitor, if not, get a video card for dual setup, pref may be a dual monitor card and disable on board. hdd will be sata and some have on board raid controllers. cd/dvd burners are now single-sided single-layer disc (4GB7), single-sided double-layer disc (8GB0) and double-sided double-layer disc (17GB0). i would recommend at least 8GB0. you can use cd/dvd for backup, better yet, DAT tape in either scsi or usb2. because you are upgrading a box, do consider upping power supply to at least 650 watt for load you will be adding. > In looking at mommyboards at New Egg and Amazon, i would also check; http://www.portatech.com/ http://www.pricewatch.com/ http://magicmicro.com/ to make price comparisons for what you decide; http://sale-fire.com/ http://www.calibex.com/ hth. -- peace out. in a world with out fences, who needs gates. tc.hago. g .