Advice on CPU

Whoa....thats going to be one kickass rig

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I'd go <A HREF="http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168..." target="_new">http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168...;/A> for mobo, and the only chip worth buying for a socket A board is <A HREF="http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168..." target="_new">http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168...;/A>
If you cant make a kick butt setup with that, you aint no good.

I dont know what you are going to do with this computer.....surfing the web, E-mail, using WORD and EXCELL.....get whats listed above.

But if your going to game....get <A HREF="http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?Product..." target="_new">this</A>

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sorry guys. what i mean is less than $100 cpu and less than $70 motherboard. should i go sempron w/ socket 754 or AXP socket A? I'll be using it for gaming. not a kick-ass gaming rig but a rig that can decently play old and current games. i know this should be in graphics section but i'll just post it here 'coz i will be building my first PC, i have less than $200 budget for a vga card. im planning to buy a 9800pro with 256mb but i read some benchmarks that a 6600gt can outperform the 9800pro... so what you guys think?

Socket 754 is the best route.

The 6600GT outperformas the 9800Pro - if you can afford it, then get it.

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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>

I checked out Tom's Hardware Report titled, (The Mother of All CPU Charts Part 2 ) and focused on the Intel CPU's (550, 640, 540, and 630).
These Benchmark Charts are confusing me. In almost every Encoding Video, Audio, and Synethetic Chart... it shows the 540 beating the 640. How can that be? In one of the last charts, it shows the 540 beating, in order (The 560,550, 640, and 630). The 540 beating the 560 and 550, that's got to be wrong, those CPU's are of the same class, what the heck?? That chart is labeled (Wstream Memory Performance - "Add"), if you want to check that one out.
So my question is, are these correct? I would really like to purchase one of these four processors, but these charts have me so confused. The only charts that make since in this report, are the first eight or nine charts that refer to 3D game performance. These 3D-Game charts show the 550 and 640 beating the 540 and 630 (that makes more since to me.

MONSTER combo, you should go for
MB:
DFI LANPARTY UT nF3 250Gb Socket 754 - $80-90 on ebay or $107 on newegg.com
CPU:
AMD Sempron 2600+ 1600MHz FSB 128KB L2 90 nm 1600MHZ
$ 80 on newegg.com or 65-80 on ebay

you should buy the used ati 9800pro( make should the core R360, the 256MB will be the best) and flash bios into 9800XT. Your new system will overwhelm the AMD64 3000+ and P4 3.6 after overclocking.



Sempron 2600+@2400MHZ
DFI LANPARTY UT nF3 250Gb FSB300MHZ
Kingston HyperX PC3200 512MB
ATI 9800pro mod to XT @ 450/390
250GB WD SATA