OT but a hardware question

>> The following questions/opinions is to help someone
>> who needs to buy a new machine to work on at home and
>> stay up-to-date M$ software wise for several years
>> into the future to keep her job. See explanation at
>> bottom.
>>
>> I took a friend's sister over to Elitepc yesterday to
>> look at the '32 bit' machines and we got 'side
>> tracked' looking at the new xp3200+ 64 bit as it is
>> only about $200 more than a 2600 with upgrades. She
>> and I were impressed with price/value? of the basic
>> xp3200+ 64bit machine there.
>>
>> She is a 'pc/web training coordinator' for a local
>> governmental function. She is looking at getting a
>> better home pc than the k6-2 333 so she can do work at
>> home as it is almost impossible to do at work due to
>> everyone walking in and distracting her. Closing door
>> doesn't do any good...they will just see the light is
>> on and pound on door till she answers!!!
>>
>> My thougths were since it looks like 64 bit processing
>> is coming that she might want to get one of the
>> 'bottom' line 64 bit amd's that they sell. Believe it
>> or not, the machine is under $1k in minimum config. It
>> is the xp-3200+, not the fx51 version. It will have
>> 512k, 80gb wd hd, use old monitor and kb, mx440-8x
>> video.
>>
>>
> The 512K version is called 3000+ not 3200+. Remember that not only
> will you spend a 100% premium for the mobo/ cpu you will also have to
> buy registered ddr (read more expensive). I pricewatch the 3000+ combo
> at 334 on pricewatch. It might be worth your time to look at the an
> opteron 140 (aka single cpu opteron running at 1.4 Ghz, which
> pricwattches at 304 for mobo/cpu combo). The opteron is better in a
> couple of ways, but in my mind the big thig is that it would not have
> been bin sorted as having bad cache.
>
> As long as she does not play games I should think that just about
> anything over 1 Ghz will be good for a long time. A ton of ram may
> well IMHO bring better results that a faster cpu...
>
> Mind you this is comming from a guy on a pentium pro 200 Mhz, 128 ram,
> and 40 Ghz drive, which i think is very useable

I think he means 512KB of RAM and not L2 cache. Both the 3000+ and
3200+ are really 2 Ghz processors one has 1MB or L2 cache the other has
512KB. These are socket 754 which if I remember right don't require
registered memory like the FX or Opteron cores. IMHO if it isn't much
more go for it. For what is being done with it 512 MB of RAM is plenty
even with XP installed. That way in the third quarter of next year when
the finally release windows XP 64 she will be able to train on it. But
realistically there is no benefit to 64 bit computing for your average
desktop user. But if you are going to be needing to train on it in the
future it can't hurt if the price is about the same.