Stuck in socket A

If you get a good xp-m chip, and OC it, you might get close to 1/2 way there. A lot would depend on the board though, and what you will use it for.

It realy depents on your mobo.
The fastest AMD XP 3200+ cost about $145 on pricewatch.com.

I had a XP-m 2400 in a ASUS A8-VX or something like that. The Chip was 75 and the mobo was like 50. Pretty cheap if you ask me. I was using cheap value RAM. I got the chip up to 2.35 Ghz but became more and more unstable after awhile. So I backed it doen to 2.3, 2.2, and finally 2.15 Ghz. At its peak in performed similarly to a winchester core A64 3000. For example, the A64 could encode a 2 min VOB is 1 min 35 sec. My XP-m did the same in 1 min 45 sec. I'm not sure about gaming cuz games are so GPU dependant. You can Overclock it on air but it gets real hot! I used one of those thermaltake all copper 80mm fans and underload it got to around 130F withthe RPMs on the fun at 75%. I use this overclocking utility that can underclock as well in windows, so it idled at 83F. You may not get the same results though. Not all mobos will support the XP 3200. That chip also runs very hot. Uncomfortably for my tastes. For simplicities sake, I would go for the 3200 if you arent too versed at overclocking. I do have to ask though: Why are you tied to a socket A mobo?