Since AMD just cut their dual-core CPU prices almost in half, I'm looking at moving up from my current CPU/motherboard/memory to something that's both dual-core and 64-bit. My CPU looks like the current bottleneck with the games I play (Doom 3, and various older OpenGL stuff on Linux).

Current system:

1. Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton core)
2. Via KT400-chipset motherboard (Asus A7V8X-X)
3. 768MB DDR333 memory (PC2700), bought from some random fly-by-night company

This system was built 2-3 years ago, and I've upgraded my video card since then, so I really don't want to replace that. (It's still AGP 8x, not PCIe x16.) However, I'm looking for a motherboard that does both AGP and PCIe, so that next time I upgrade the video card, I can move to PCIe without having to go through the motherboard/CPU/memory replacement cycle again.

The only chipset I've been able to find that can do both PCIe and AGP is a ULi chipset. The only motherboard with that chipset is from ASRock (Asus's low-cost brand). This board can do Socket 939 with dual-channel DDR1 memory, or (with an expansion card) Socket AM2 with dual-channel DDR2. I'm planning on doing the expansion card.

I'd like to get this stuff from Newegg if possible, mostly because I've never had problems with them. (Versus the memory I currently have, which doesn't run at its rated CAS latency...) Links to the components:

1. CPU -- Athlon 64 X2, 4200+
2. Motherboard - ASRock 939Dual-SATA2, plus AM2 CPU bridge card
3. Memory -- 2GB Corsair DDR2-800

Opinions? Has anyone had issues with these products (or manufacturers) before? The Newegg reviews look great, but I'm not sure what those are necessarily worth -- I'd trust people here more, mostly because I know most of you are better-experienced than the average Newegg reviewer. ;-)

I will be running Linux From Scratch on this system; initially I'll just run my current install in 32-bit mode, but I want to (re)build an OS that runs in 32/64 mode fairly soon. The motherboard's Linux compatibility seems OK from what I've read -- there's a driver for the onboard LAN and SATA2 chipsets, at least. (I likely won't use the onboard audio unless it does hardware mixing; my current YMF724F does that, and I don't want to have to muck about with arts or esd or some other software mixer.) Actually I likely won't use the onboard SATA for a good long while either; my two current IDE drives will stay around. But support is still good, because I do want to move in that direction later. (Just like PCIe, actually...)

And the CPU and memory will, of course, still work with Linux, so the motherboard is the only possible snag there.

(FYI: I'm on lunch at work right now, so I won't get a chance to check back in on this until later tonight.)

Thanks!