It is time to take my 4 yr old Pentium D system running Windows XP Pro and upgrade it to Windows 7 Home Premium. This is going to have to be more than an OS upgrade, I am going to have to perform a motherboard / cpu upgrade as well.

I had thought that my current motherboard (don’t remember off the top of my head) would support Intel Core2 Duo processors, but it does not. That being so, I plan on dumping Intel and move [back] to AMD. I have been keeping up with Intel processors, but not AMD so I need some help choosing a good AMD processor and a matching motherboard.

I have been using the desktop for general web surfing, Microsoft Office apps, watching Netflix, Hulu and YouTube, occasionally recording OTA TV and occasionally authoring videos/DVDs. I do not see my needs changing much. The Pentium D has performed satisfactory, though anything involving video does stress the system.

So help me out … what is a good general purpose AMD processor?

[update 2009-11-27] Am thinking about this combo on sale at NewEgg ….