am2 motherboard recommendation?

Hi,

My home pc is a bit slow, so I think it might be time for an upgrade.

It's a while since I looked into what was out there. I don't think I
can afford a quad core phenom, so I will be looking for a dual core. I
see the 5000 model is reasonably priced but has 2*512 cache whereas
the slightly faster 5600 has 2*1mb cache. Does the larger cache make a
big difference? Is it worth paying more for?

I understand that the 5600 runs at 2800Mhz (i.e. 5600/2). How much
faster is a 5600 compared to a single core xp2800? Is it twice as
fast?

To get back onto a gigabyte theme, what board do you recommend I use?
I think some only have 2 sata connections, which means one hdd and one
dvd or two hdds only, which is quite limiting, so I guess I want more
than 2 sata. Do all sata haave built-in raid? I'd quite like to try
raid.

I won't be using it for gaming or anything and I doubt I will
overclock it.

I understand some have built in sound and video. They would be nice
but not essential. I currently have a dual monitor set-up via a Matrox
g450. I'd quite like to keep the dual monitor thing; what new cards
support that?

Thanks in advance.

Sam wrote:
Hi,

My home pc is a bit slow, so I think it might be time for an upgrade.

It's a while since I looked into what was out there. I don't think I
can afford a quad core phenom, so I will be looking for a dual core. I
see the 5000 model is reasonably priced but has 2*512 cache whereas
the slightly faster 5600 has 2*1mb cache. Does the larger cache make a
big difference? Is it worth paying more for?

I understand that the 5600 runs at 2800Mhz (i.e. 5600/2). How much
faster is a 5600 compared to a single core xp2800? Is it twice as
fast?

To get back onto a gigabyte theme, what board do you recommend I use?
I think some only have 2 sata connections, which means one hdd and one
dvd or two hdds only, which is quite limiting, so I guess I want more
than 2 sata. Do all sata haave built-in raid? I'd quite like to try
raid.

I won't be using it for gaming or anything and I doubt I will
overclock it.

I understand some have built in sound and video. They would be nice
but not essential. I currently have a dual monitor set-up via a Matrox
g450. I'd quite like to keep the dual monitor thing; what new cards
support that?

Thanks in advance.

Barton 2083 (2800+) OPGA 166 512 12.5x 1.65V 85oC 53.7W

AthlonXP 2800+ running at stock 2083MHz - SuperPI (1 million digits) in 40.56 seconds
http://www.hwbot.org/result.do?resultId=710724

Athlon64 X2 5600+ 2x1MB cache at 2800MHz - SuperPI (1 million digits) in 30.23 seconds
http://www.hwbot.org/result.do?resultId=650301

The SuperPI benchmark is single threaded, just like a lot of old software is
single threaded. An application like Photoshop, can get a boost from running
on both cores at the same time (so the speedup will be more). And if you run
several applications, the operating system will spread them across the cores.
Even the desktop will feel "smoother", with fewer glitches and hesitations
due to only having a single core. So in that sense, the dual core is superior,
even if the applications didn't happen to run a lot faster. And the SuperPI
results show your new processor is faster.

HTH,
Paul