Are you sure he was talking about Athlon XP or Athlon 64. Because there is 2 Athlon 64 3200+, one with 512K and the other with 1024K of cache. But, in most case the 512K is faster than the 1024K one, because the 512K is 200MHz faster than the 1024K version.
But, today, 1024K are getting harder to find, it's probably why your paid an extra for the Athlon 64 3200+, not the Athlon XP. And if he bought an Athlon XP he got ripped of! Use CPU-Z and check the amount of cache and the CPU model, CPU-Z will tell you exactly what your friend bought.
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A7N8X / <font color=green><b>AMD Sempron 2800+</b></font color=green> <-- <i>Is this affecting my credibility???</i>
Kingston DDR333 2x256Megs
<font color=red>Radeon 8500 128Megs</font color=red> @ C:275/M:290