Advice needed on new CPU

I am looking to upgrade my ageing system and recently began the process.
So far I have got myself an Enermax EG 465AX PSU and waiting for my Coolermaster Cavalier 3 case.

I have been looking at a new CPU and now have some suggestions.

Intel Pentium 4 506 2.66Mhz CPU with EMT64
AMD Athlon 64s
AMD Bartons
AMD Semprons

Is the Intel any good? I believe it has no hyper threading which is a shame, but should be powerful enough for my needs.

Are Semprons any good as well more the 64 bit ones? They seem to be nice and cheap but I guess their floating point calculations are really bad.

Im really on a tight budget and will need to consider a new Motherboard along with RAM. I was looking at no more than £150-£200 for Cpu, Ram and MB. So ideally the CPU should be around £70 or so, although I could stretch to £90-£100 if justified.

My needs really are to play the odd games (FPS, RTS, Space/Flight sims), I've kind of benchmarked a new PC to be able to cope with Doom 3/Far Cry easily and also Age of Empires 3. In addition, I would be surfing, watching DVDs/TV, Burn CDs/DVDs occasionally after I learn how to edit some home vids.

Advice would be appreciated, and I won't be overclocking so will be stock speeds.

mithrandir

Get yourself a Venice 3000+ and clock the titties off it :D Its really very easy, and doesnt generate much more heat than at stock...

For gaming the AMD64 series beats everything else hands down from a price to perforamance perspective

If you absolutely refuse to overclock what you want to do is stretch to an Athlon 64 3000+ with 512Mb of generic ram and any mobo that the mobo monkeys reccomend, since I don't know about cheap A64 mobos.

Intel isn't good for budget(or at all, really, but meh :D) so stay away from that with your price range, semprons and bartons are both dead technology, although if you want cheap the best option would really be buy a mobile barton 2500+ and overclock the brains out of it. You could take it up to 2.4Ghz maybe further, and have a chip that was about as good as an A64 3000+ for quite a bit less. But if you won't overclock, then go for an A64 3000+

Thanks guys,

I'm thinking of having a relatively stable machine without having to run a jet fan to keep it cool. I have been thinking of Barton first, but then thought for about £20 or so more I can get a skt 754. Then I was looking into 64 bit CPUs and was thinking of 'future proofing'.

the Intel I found was quite cheap in relations to other Intels. It was under £80 so I was thinking it's a good deal, although I've read Intel MB are a little more expensive. In £/performance ratio, is this CPU comparable to the Athlon64 3000? The EMT64 seems to indicate it is 64bit CPU, but does not have Hyper-threading. Wow, so many more choices than when I first got my ageing PC!

really, if you want upgradeability (I really should have paid attention when i was being taught to spell, but meh) go for socket 939. Might be a bit more money in the short term, but should reward if you later find you need more power, as it will support both standard A64s and the newer dual core ones. Although Intel have the budget market sorted with the Celeron D, AMD Athlon XP Mobiles are still around and offer good performance (some up to 3400+ speeds on air) if your considering 32 bit.

Dave

oh btw, what ever they tell you, I'd avoid a 2.66MHz P4 :p

XP mobiles go alot higher then barton 3400 rating on air, mines at 4000, and higher can be achieved, on air that is, on water you can go further. My fans at 30dB, but if thats too much for you, and you dont want to overclock, go A64 3000, it'll cost more and be about as good, but you'll have a mobo(dont call motherboards MB for short, use mobo, MB implies RAM :)) that can accept better chips as you get more money and the chips come down in price.

Ebuyer have a AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (venice) and foxconn motherboard for £135. Ram would cost about £35, with delivery, you're looking at about £175-£180. All you need to then do is add on a PCI-E Graphics card.
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=97166

If you have AGP, the AGP rig would be similar money.

Scan have a P4 3.06ghz, 200MB HD, 512MB ram and Abit 925X PCIE motherboard for £245.

Scan also have a complete system without graphics card for £185 (case, motherboard, sempron, memory and 80GB hard disk) http://www.scan.co.uk/mixit/