advice on cpu selection

i'm new but i've been reading a lot, i'm wondering if you could give some advice on cpu selection. i'm having a tough time deciding between the xp 1700 or 2100 from excaliburpc or the barton 2500. is it worth it to get the 1700 or the 2100 and wait a while for prices to drop on 3000 or better to get the 2500 now...it seeems like any of those chips will get the 200FSB that i'm looking for. please advise thanks.

my advise get the XP1700+ DLT3C JIUHB0310WPMW or XPMW .... as they'll run 2.3ghz to 2.5ghz with good cooling (plus their cheap) ..... wait awhile for new barton steppings then make the jump

excalibur's a bit pricey though .... you might like to try find other stores like gameve ..... although excalibur's steppings seems to one of the best around .....

other steppings of the XP1700+ that have produced very good results are

0307xpmw
0308SPMW

mine is a 0308XPMW does 2.3 at 1.75 2.4ghz at 1.825

Excal is a little more xpensive than the other vendors, but they do guarantee the stepping you recieve, which is a bonus.

If you want to have fun, in vogue for oc, good price $60+, get the Tbred B 1700+ DLT3C. Make sure it is not a Tbred A but a B, such as JIUHB. It will have a good chance to 2.2 - 2.4 GHz stable in air, if "lucky" 2.5% GHz. It is stable up to 1.6-1.9 V Vcore oc, and under 50C die temp.

For more stable oc at higher Vcore 1.7 - 2.0 V, the 2100+ can get to 2.2 - 2.4 GHz stable in air also, 2.5 GHz if "lucky".

IMHO, both 1700+ or 2100+ are good for oc and price, good chance on air to 2.2-2.4 GHz, or even 2.5 GHz. The 2100+ is more stable at higher Vcore and die temp.

For Barton 2500+, most ppl can get to 2.2 GHz, some 2.3 GHz. Barton will run faster for certain applications due to its 512KB L2 cache (twice that of TBred B). But I would wait for its chips to mature and wait for confirmation that the 512 KB L2 chips (Barton or whatever) can be clocked to 2.5+ GHz, unless you have certain applications today that can benefit a lot with larger L2.

All of them require good cooling and PSU to achieve speed above 2.4 GHz, due to high power and current.

My vote for the 2100, 2.5 for less than $100.00 who can beat that? And i also suggest to everyone to purchase from Excaliber, they have went out of their way to deliver the products that WE want.

well i caved in and went with the barton i was able to get it for 123 including shipping...so we'll see how it works out

the barton 2500 is good since it has 512k of L2 cache most ppl get it up to 2.2-2.4ghz. the tbred 1700 is good too