3200 a good buy?

Hey, i just need some good old-fashioned opinionated advice.

A friend wants to get a new board and a fast CPU--he won't be overclocking. He's looking at an nForce2 board, and he was thinking of getting an XP3200+

Is the 3200 a good value? He's going to get retail, and i am doubting whether the 3200 is worth the cash right now.

Suggestions? I wantem all.

Thanks,
Tim

personally, i would agree with your sentiments

i just did a quick scan at the prices....

at the ~$400-$450 price range that the 3200+ 400fsb processor is at.. i would much rather spend a touch less money on a pentium4 3.0ghz 800fsb, which would perform a bit better overall than the 3200+, which i would compare with a p4-2.8 or 2.9 running at 800 fsb

and a comparable price mobo, like 865 or i dont know intel mobos that well so i'll stop there....

but yeah. for spending $400+ on a processor right NOW, intel looks to be teh better deal

on the other hand....

if he doesnt mind waiting a week or four (hehe) the AMD athlon64 3200+ will debut around the mid $400's (ballpark guess?) but the kicker is that the mobo's are still a touch above $200... but that would give him some nice bragging rights at a $100 premium over the pentium 4 3.0, but would make him competitive with the $600 pentium4 3.2 at a slightly lower pricepoint (maybe $100)

i might have gone too far,....hehe

Tell your friend with $ to burn that this is the week when Athlons 64 come out (triple exclamation point)

The only reason we're all not lining up is the money...which he has....

Buying expensive 3200+ on the eve of Athlon 64 relase is a poorly timed decision indeed.

Get an AMD 64!

http://www.pbase.com/image/17079307/original