First what is the difference between Socket 940 and Socket AM2? I am looking to upgrade my old AMD PC 1800. I want an AM2 4200 speed with a motherboard that can handle more the 4 ATA devices. Any suggestions?
940 is older and is mainly for opteron server processors. AM2 is the newest socket taht is going to replace 939. I havn't really looked into AM2 motherboards that much but just look for a good Asus board as Asus is ussualy the best company for motherboards.
Asus are about the best at present. Both AM2 and the older 940 socket are 940 pin sockets, but the pin layout is different to stop people inserting the AM2 CPU in the wrong board. The M2N32-SLI's (DLX nForce 590, and Deluxe 570) have 6 SATA 2 ports on the Nvidia controller and another 2 on the SI controller. You'll need to remember that these boards will need DDR2 memory not standard DDR memory that all the other AMD chips use. If you don't want SLi then maybe look at the Asus M2N-E which also has the 570 chipset on it.
I was looking at the ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard, but it got mixed reviews cause of no firefire ports and issues with the DDR2 memory. (Only supported 1.8v memory). I was also looking at the Foxconn C51XEM2AA- 8EKRS2H Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard. Is Foxconn any good? Also what type of power supply do I need for these chip sets?
you should just stick with 939 for now, am2 doesnt offer a large performance increase, stick with asus they make the best boards.
