Know what I'm talking about??? Who pissed in your Mac and Cheese and talk about the pot calling the kettle black. :|
You know exactly what I'm talking about so don't even go there.
A Biostar M7MIA will run you $149 in the states. Less money than any Abit, and Asus for that matter, more stable AND FASTER.
Crucial PC1600 DDR is $67.99 in 128s and $118.79 in 256. THAT'S cheap and you know just as well as I do that even PC1600 is going to be faster than PC133 and some folks have even been sucessful at running their PC1600 with a 133/266 FSB on the board (not me, unfortunately).
Yes, it's true that PC2100 is expensive if even obtainable, but in general, PC1600 suits my needs affordably and with stability and with speed.
As far as avenues for my previous RAM, no I'm not rich and yes I now have a lot of DIMMs floating around now, but I have enough boxes around me to upgrade the RAM in and if not, I could sell it (obviously not for much seeing how cheap SDRAM is now).
You're correct in saying, "Yes. If you have SDRAM you are best off just buying a faster board." but for the marginal performance gain, why bother?
All I'm saying really is IF you're going to buy RAM and a mobo, why bother with SDRAM when there's DDR SDRAM for the Athlon platform (and hell, for the PIII platform now!). Read what I said: "Let's run out and buy SDRAM and an SDRAM board when DDR SDRAM boards and memory cost the same." Unless you split hairs, you know the statement is, for the most part, true.