I am considering building my own computer to replace the 5-year-old box I am currently using. Looking around the Net and in local shops for which CPU to purchase is somewhat confusing as there are so many CPUs available. However, I have come up with two, but I cannot decide on which is best. Hopefully, an expert on the forum can help ;-)

1. Pentium 4 650 3.4 GHz 3,150 baht

2. Pentium D 925 3.0 GHz 3,190 baht

Which would you choose? I understand that the Pentium D series is no longer in production. Would that be an issue?

Secondly, does anyone have any experience of ASRock mainboards? Good or bad? I read one review on the Net saying that one particular ASRock mainboard was the best value for money at the price.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

The Pentium 4's are around 3 generations old. The Pentium D 9-series are around 2 generations old. The current generation is the Core Duo series, which perform a lot better and produce less heat. DON'T look at the GHZ numbers, as they can't be compared between generations. A 2 GHz Core will beat a 3.4 Ghz Pentium 4. In other words, get a Core Duo CPU. The E4300 is a cheap one that can overclock very well.

Asrock mainboards are cheap. They don't have much else going for them. Get a known brand like Asus or Gigabyte, and you'll have less problems. The latest chipset is the P35, but there aren't many mainboards out yet. The next best is the P965.

Unless you need the PC for a unique purpose (such as gaming for example) then my advice would be to look at configurations from the main vendors like Dell, choose a setup in about the 3rd quartile in terms of price, i.e. not the most expensive but not a cheap one either. And then get the parts and build it yourself or get the parts shop to do it for you.

Asrock is a Taiwanese Brand and owned by Asustek INC. (Asus). The MB's are good and a very good value for price! I use a lot of Asrock MB's by our customers and haveing less problems compare with Asus!

CPU wise I would go for an Core2Duo but spend money on memory, min. 2 GB better 4 GB. Anyway it's depends on your need or what you would do with the comp which spec you should looking for.

Thanks for all your help

Yes, Asrock is owned by Asus, and it's major goal is to produce cheaper mainboards than the parent company, Asus, for budget systems. Hence, less bells and whistles, and lesser quality components. Generally, people would choose Asus if they had the money, and Asrock if they didn't, but YMMV.

You'll be seeing a lot of Pentium Ds being offloaded by various shops, and people buying them. It's because they're very old (being phased out) and people who see the GHz numbers will think that the Pentium D is faster than the Cores, when in fact it's the other way around.