I used to follow all of this stuff real closely, but then I realized that my computer ran games REAL well, so I stopped building, and started playing with my toys! But now I have been asked to build 5 Budget Gaming PC's. I was wondering what the new *HOT* chip is? When I left, it was the XP-M (which I use/love). Any help is really appriciated, along with a link to any good deals.
Some choices for you: the XP M's are still good budget chips, especially the 25 and 26's, and tey are even better if you find the good steppings. Also consider the 2.6 or 2.8 P4c's, they are good value and most will OC very nicely. Finally how about going 64 bit? 754 3000 and 3200's are reasonably expensive but will give great games performance.
The stores might give stepping info, if you need help, jsut post here. You can do a search through the threads as well to get info on the current good steppings, and overclockers.com cpu database will give info as well.
XP-M's still give the best bang for buck if you want a little o/c action if not the the XP2500Barton is hard to beat for 32Bits and A64-XP3000 for 64bit goodness but is more than double the price.
