need help selecting CPU

Umm.... I think you need to save up some more $$$.

You say you're looking at intel's lide but with just $200, the only alternative to build (half of, not all the PC) a decent system is to go for a kind of Sempron 3300+, 2GHz (socket 754, about $60), a budget board for it (about $40), and get the other $100 for a decent video card.

If you want to keep the card, still an athlon 3800+ ($100) and a budget mombo ($60) age the best bang for your money if you're gaming. Always keeping RAM out of the equation, but with the remaining $40, you can still get a 512MB stick.

Uh... he has a video card already.

I figured he was saying $200 for the CPU itself, or, possibly, $200 for a CPU/mobo combo. If it's $200 for the CPU, you're looking at a D 940 ~$195 or a D 930 ~$190. Not sure if you want to go single-core.

If it's $200 for CPU and mobo, the popular D 805 is around $100, and you might get lucky and get one that can overclock well -- plus the $100 leftover lets you spend a few bucks on a mobo that can support said overclocking. The D 915 is around $140 or so, but that only gives you $60 for a motherboard which is tight but doable. Here's an ASUS that fits the bill.

You could look for a CPU/mobo bundle too, sometimes you can stumble on a deal but it's not always a great configuration.

Once you decide on a price, you might also want to look at AMD options too, with the recent price drops there are some attractive deals.

no 200 for the cpu

see this is where i get confused whats the advantage of the duo instead of a single. and for mother board i was thinking the asus p5p800 se

Still the 3800+ is better for games, and it runs much more cooler.

this is my situation. i live with my girlfirends she hase a pc that i pretty much use, i use it just about all the time, but i want something that i own, the pc i use has the following, graphics it has a ati radeon x1600 pro(that i put in it) memory orignally 512 i added 1 gig more, and cpu a pentium 4 2.52 ghz . and a 120 harddrive that i upgraded. so im looking to take my stuff back and make a new one. i want to better the cpu so its faster than the pentium 4 2.50 , does the pentium d 940 do the job. one of the other problem i have is that my video card is an agp. my girlfirend pc's motherboard is agp but at x4 i need a x8 does that make i difference in games?. the new motherboard has to be agp. with pci e being in just about anything new is it bad to stick with agp at this moment?.

You can get an AGP mobo but you'll limit your future upgrade options. You're also going to want to get new RAM since on any newer mobo you'll want matched RAM; i.e., two of the same 512M units or two 1G ones.

if you're looking at $200 for a processor, the X2 4200+ fits right into your budget. You'd also have the option of the X2 3800+ ~$170, and there are some killer deals on single-cores in the AMD line, like the 3800+ at around $140, with which you could build a respectable budget system. The 3500+ is around $100 now, too. I don't see why you couldn't get a decent mobo and overclock it to 2.4GHz easily.

Even a $75 Athlon 64 3000+ would be better than the CPU you're using now. If the video card you have is fairly new, you might even be able to turn around and sell it for a few bucks, same with the RAM.

Really, you're best off building a new system instead of trying to keep your video card and RAM in this case. Figure out your overall budget and then start looking at components; you can get 1GB of good RAM for under $100, there are great PCIe video card deals around $150, and cases, hard drives, and other odds and ends can be found pretty cheap.

Good luck. I know what it's like to be just on the tail end of the curve. Earlier this year I did my final upgrade on my Socket A AGP system, so for the future I have to look at building something from the ground up.

Don't know where you're looking but I see @ www.ewiz.com the 3800+ $104, the X2 3800+ $149 and the 4200+ $185.