crazijoe

PCChips, ECS and Biostar are all the same company. When you start combining unusual options, usually these are the manufacturers that would produce them. I have had my share of bad boards from PCChips, however I believe that the boards go through a little more QA to get an ECS or Biostar name put on them as I haven't had that many problems show up with the systems I have built.

I do however think that I would not go full bore on a Conroe setup unless I had appropriate hardware that can take advantage of the technology, to go with it (i.e. PCI-e, dual channel DDR2, etc.).

If I was in the situation where I would have to retain AGP, I would go for an AMD setup. (What did these words come out of me? Yes they did.). Because everyone knows that a comprable AMD kicks butt on a P4 or Pentium D.