by Virgil Tue Jun 03, 2008 7:34 am
For $200 you can get an intel e8400 which is a 45nm processor, as liathon suggested. The nice thing about this is that they run super cool. Super cool means you can overclock them to 3.6 with no problems at all. I have one and am currently at 3.8 and stable and it never crosses the 47C mark, even when running stress tests.
Anyways, if you want to explore overclocking a bit its a great CPU. If thats the price range you want to go with a CPU you just need to decide the rest of your budget and if you want to SLI or crossfire.
Right now you can hit the highest benchmarks if you run with an SLI rig, however it will cost you. ATI is really going for the price/performance market, which is not to say you cant get great numbers with a crossfire rig.
Also, you just buy the 64bit version of XP instead of the 32bit version, its not difficult to find at all.