I am considering upgrading my system. I woul dlike to get an AMD 64bit processor. Anyone have any suggestions on what to get. I expect to spend a little bit of money on it but I do not want to spend $500, because I'd like to upgrade a few more components.
Are you going to use your current motherboard? you have to have a AMD 64 compatable board. so....you want make sure you have the board as well as the processor if you've got the right board then you can get a 3200+ Venice chip: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535
I just built my own AMD 64 PC this Jan. It was great. I bought my AMD 3200+ Athlon 64 CPU, 1 Ghz Ram, a new motherboard that supports the AMD64 CPU. Most likely you will need to get another new motherboard. When I bought mine, the CPU cost almost $200, the motherboard is around $120.
IF you wait for a good package deal you can get MB + CPU for 200. There was a deal at compusa for 200. Fry's has deals like this every week.
I know, I'll be getting a new MB, but I wanted to decide on the processor before I decided on the MB.
since your getting an AMD 64 you should get either the Venice or San Diego core versions of the processors because these cores are the latest revisions in the Athlon 64 line. The previous cores (winchester, newcastle etc.) come with a slower FSB (800Mhz vs 1Ghz) the San Diego cores are more expensive than the Venice cores because they come with a larger L2 cache, check out this review for a comparison because the performance depends on exactly what is being done w/ the cpu http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=219&num=1