Originally posted by: winterlude
AMD has a new socket for their next gen processors.
Wait for Conroe. This is the biggest improvement in CPU's in years.
There's a lot of debate, and I don't think anyone but AMD knows for sure, but there have been various reports that AM2 will be forward compatible with the next gen chip, and also varying reports that the next chip they're talking about is actually K8L or if K8L will actually be a total change for them and be a couple of years down the road.
Conroe is good, but its not quite as big of a change as its made out to be. X2s still compare pretty favorably to them, at least they will after the price cuts. Yes Conroe still has the performance edge, but its about the same as AMD's lead over Intel's Pentium D, so its not that big of a deal. Besides, by the time Conroe gets to you Intel will be showing off quad core CPUs, and probably AMD as well, and you'll have people telling you to just wait for them, and then by the time those get to you, then they'll have other big changes (DDR3, who knows what else) and they'll keep telling you to hold off.
You will be plenty happy with AM2. I don't know if the price drops that should be coming sometime in the next two weeks will affect prices for you, so I can't way if you should wait for them or not.
If you are going to wait, then wait for quad core and DDR3, as by then multi-core processing should be more advanced than now (more software that actually really takes advantage of it should be out). Maybe Vista will be out by then and will be worth using (probably not).
I would say just go for it. Thats a fairly budget minded setup it looks to me, and so a lot of the higher end stuff won't matter all that much to you. Unless you're a big overclocker, I would say don't worry about Conroe, its nice for sure, but not life altering.
Something else to consider is that you might look at starting a budget Intel system. If you wait a bit for a good board that might hold you over into quad core even, and then pair it with a Pentium D 805 for dirt cheap (if it is for you that is, otherwise just ignore this), and then you can decide if you should go quad core or just pick up a Conroe for cheap later when they're options for you.