Cheers fellas..I just about checked my email to a horde of replies..its good advice this website! From what I have been told, my Intel 3.2GHZ, im not sure how much cache, I think most likely 2MB, is quite good for what it is, but in comparison, what do AMD offer? And what else would they offer for a little more money? I mean I probably willing to spend up to £150, thats about $225 for your guys in the US, but only if I were to get some significant better performance out of it. My case registers the temp at around 35 degrees c, but I know for a fact that its temp is around 25-28 degrees, the sensor I have tht registers the temperature from the case is almost like a thermal sensor at the end of a wire going up to an LED display at the front of the case..(unless Im wrong)
moving on to the motherboard..I have to agree there isn't really anything wrong with it IMHO, I mean it does the job, it has plenty of new features on there, and runs like a charm? But saying that my HDD (a seagate 160 Gig) seems to have failed twice in bootup, but I have just resseted the darn machine and it then recognises it and boots up XP..Im thinking of switching to a maxtor 300 gig, 16MB cache, which I saw on Ebuyer..
alongside these boot up issues I have had a few blue screens as well, the dreaded blue screen of death, I think (and I hope) has to do with the 5.1 sound card I recently installed, for which a recent driver wasn't installed, so literally last night I updated the driver and am going to see if that has solved my problem..because as far as I can remember, there weren't blue screens before I installed it, and if this isn't it I think it might be the HDD, because it might be a lil dodgy, could the HD lead to blue screens?
I don't think in any case I will look to upgrade my motherboard, I might give AMD a chance in a year or so, maybe by then AMD will have significantly improved against Intel and I will buy a good AMD chip, (do they still overheat like crazy?)..but I think the motherboard I have really compared to the crappy one I had before, will last me for all my gaming needs!
lol and lastly the PSU rocks!! It's such a nice design, and runs absolutely impeccably! For those who are wondering, I would definately reccomend this to those who want a good PSU, the other thing about it, it makes case modding a dream, the wires are already tied up, and the easy socket attachment make everything bout the PSU really easy and good for case modding..it also has an intake fan sucking hot air from your mainboard..v v nice!
would appreciate any help on all the questions fellas..thanks again