Best Socket A chip for gaming?

[PJYelton]

If I were to upgrade my chip to improve my gaming experience without changing my motherboard, what is the best Socket A chip available? Is it the XP 2800+? Also, what is the best chip under $130?

 

[beedubaya]

The XP 3200+ is the best one, but I would seriously consider the AMD64 if you are a gamer. The AMD XP series is becoming a little dated, and you can see it in the benchmarks.

 

[StoneBridge]

Hey,

Definately go for A64's if you can. They are great (and they will get even better once FULL 64bit support is available for Win XP and other software).

What FSB does your motherboard support?

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Nubius]

well if your motherboard BIOS has enough options in it, you could always consider getting a mobile 2400+ or 2600+ and OC the hell out of it. You can reach pretty good speeds even with stock cooling. AMD64 won't be utilized until atleast 2006 so really I'm please with my Socket A system as with a 1gb of high performance RAM and the same card as some of these otherpeople I'd be getting the same if not better benches simply because my clockspeed is much higher. Although the AMD64 can do better ghz to ghz compared to an XP, an OC'd XP chip can beat out the 64's especially the lower ones like 3000+ 3200+ or even 3500+

 

[PJYelton]

Yeah, I was looking at the A64's but on my tight budget I didn't want to have to pay for a new mobo AND a new chip. Is the 2800+ or 3200+ overclockable to a decent extent?

 

[Nubius]

no the 2800 and 3200+'s aren't overclockable, you don't buy those chips to overclock. If you want to overclock to and past 3200+ XP speeds then you get a chip like the 35w 2400+ XP-M or 2600+ XP-M it's the mobile XP's which are socket A so they can fit into a socket a desktop motherboard....those are half the price of the 3200+'s and like I said can reach 3200+ speeds and beyond, I got mine up to 2.7GHz and could run stabily, currently I have it at 2.5GHz just for a lower Vcore, but that's 300MHz higher than the 3200+ XP and has the same core, cache and is half the price, and runs cooler at stock settings

 

[PJYelton]

Thanks for the info, where would you recommend I buy the XP-M's online? I've done a quick search and they don't look that common.

 

[mlr]

yep goto agree with nubius there, i had the 2800 xp and got rid of it for the one im using now the 2500 xp-m with the 2800 i reached around 2300ghz were with this ive had it upto to 2600ghz