My gaming computer just totally died and I need to replace it. I am pretty comfortable with most of the parts, but there are two bits I am lost on.

Intel i5/i7 vs AMD Phenom. I know the i5 and i7 chips, but how do Phenom chips rate in comparison?

What is a good nVidia chipset that is a good balance between price/performance that would display something like the upcoming Skyrim reasonably (i.e. better than a 360/PS3) well...

Intel iX processors are faster, Phenom are usually cheaper for a given performance.

NV don't do chipsets anymore I take it you mean GPU anything from the 460 up (470,480,560 etc) will do more than a console as will AMDs HD 57XX upwards, if your planning to go multimonitor most people recommend AMD over NV for graphics (NV require 2 cards AMD only 1 to run 3+ monitors)

Thanks, I think I will go i5 then.
Yes I meant GPU, not chipset. I trust nVidia over ATi after some very bad driver experiences (in the past, but once bitten twice shy). I was looking at a GT520 (very entry level I realise) and hope that would at least be a good starter system for now.

You might wanna read up on recent NV drivers btw they've had 4 bad ones in just over a year :S and before someone else calls me a fanboi my last card was NV... they killed it to a driver fault recently -.-

All of it died? What did you do to it? I've seen benchmarks showing Intel chips to be superior to AMD ones. Passmark is one of them. I'm not sure how accurate/relevant they are though.

My last encounter with an AMD chip was in a laptop a few years back. It boiled down to one thing - too hot. AMD claims to have fixed this by now. I have no reason to believe otherwise.

AMD's bulldozer is due out in a week. If it doesn't get postponed again, that could be interesting...

You said you know about i5 vs i7. I'll say this anyway. My take is on desktops stick to an i5 as an i7 only adds hyper-threading which is next to useless when you already have 4 cores. Any thing will out perform a 360/PS3 these days. Since you like nVidia and want decent price/performance (which is harder to do with nVidia then AMD IMO) I'd grab a GTX 460.

I may have to read up then. However I have seen one recent ATi card totally unable to display Neverwinter Nights specifically - that would upset me if I couldn't run it.

I would never call someone providing me useful information a fanboy btw - I appreciate the help! Well it was 6 years old! It had been in storage for nearly a year, brought it out recently as gaming on a laptop was irritating me.

Turned it on, played for an hour then walked away. Came back and it had rebooted then frozen. When turned off and back on nothing happens. I /THINK/ it is the motherboard that died, as it doesn't even show POST now. Sadly while the components are salvageable, they really aren't worth putting in a modern system. DDR2 RAM, AMD x64 2.2 or so processor, nVidia GT8600 or something card (ok that may be passable). 150Gb 5400 RPM drive.

OK, I think you're right about the components. Case, DVD drive (if it has one) and power supply might be worth salvaging. That would be about it.

Your sure it isn't just the power supply that died?

100% sure... hitting the power button makes all the fans start up.
Just nothing else!

Does button on the CD drive open the drive? (As long as it's powered I believe it should regardless of what state the motherboard is in.)

Any lights on the motherboard or any installed cards?

Yes to the optical drive and also the onboard NIC has both lights on.

Yep, time for a new mother board. As you have been saying, might as well replace a few other things while you're at it.

Best of luck.