Building a new computer

[smack500]

I am building a new computer because frankly this once just stinks. I have set my budget to 700$ total, and 250$ on a cpu. I was pretty well set on getting an amd with a nforce 2 chipset nf7. After readings tomshardware on benchmarks of cpus Im not so sure though. I dont have the money for amds new top of the line 64s, and the xp 3000+ seems to stink compared to intels p4 2800-3200 mhz. Anyway Basically Im asking what cpu do you recomend to get for under 250$ and please explain why???

[Restek]

The Athlon definitely doesn't perform quite as well as the P4, but it is also a lot cheaper. Therefore if I was building my own comp I would go with the athlon because it is better value for money Any modern chip can cope with most things you throw at it - games and CAD wor being the exception where you may see some difference, but even then the graphics card has as much of an impact as the CPU.

[liljim]

[Restek]