Processor:
My processor of choice is the Intel Pentium 4. But which one would be the best? Of course, as the old adage says, more speed is better. However, at this point, which P4 provides the most “bang for the buck”? I’m leaning towards the 1.7 GHz. In addition, which socket should I specify, Socket 478 or Socket 423? What are the reasons and considerations? Which one would be the more viable and practical choice for long term and compatibility considerations? What are the performance differences? Is there a compelling reason to select a processor other than Intel’s Pentium 4?
Motherboard:
I have become very impressed with ASUS boards in general. Out of all my motherboards that have failed, none have been ASUS. In addition, I’ve always had good performance from them. The only question is, which board would be best suited for the particular processor we ultimately choose? (See BIOS settings considerations in separate question.)
RAM:
Of course, this depends on which processor is selected (and vice versa), but I’d prefer to have the option of using all the SDRAM I have as well as all the cheap SDRAM on the market right now. I’m not married to it, but what are the considerations. Regardless of the type used, this “Power PC” will have at least 256MB, perhaps 512MB. Ideally, I’d like to put all the MBs in one stick so increasing RAM in the future could easily be done without compatibility problems. By the way, ECC RAM is certainly my preference.