new AMD setup before AM2?

This is tough but in your shoes I'd probably go AM2.
After all, despite the minor improvement, that appears to be the socket that AMD will develop and what's wrong with nF5?

Buying into s939 right now gets you a mature platform but little opportunity for upgrade.

Can you wait another couple of months and see what happens?
And what about Conroe?

Upgradablility is indeed a concern for me, but then again, could I not upgrade from 939 to AM2 in a year by just swapping mobo, CPU and memory- or is that really too much?

In terms of performance, I am not 100% sure how the memory latency works out. DDR low latency is considered CAS2 or CL2 (not sure what the diff. is) but with DDR2 lowest I could find was CAS4. I assume there is some compensation, but between the following, which one would be considered better?

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=291363
or
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=156701

Now with graphics cards I prefer ATI over nVidia and for me the x1900xt is the best card out at the moment.... the nVidia rival either being out of stock, or quite a lot more expensive.

Now that AMD has switched to DDR2, low latency RAM should begin to appear.
The Intels didn't much benefit so there was no need to develop it just for them.

CAS2 and CL2 refer to the same thing, btw.

I keep seeing veiled hints about DDR3 in the pipeline but don't know whether it's interchangable with DDR2...that could be a dealbreaker in itself.

And then there's Conroe, coming next month.