help MPs vs Barton XP

help MPs vs Barton XP????????

Enlighten me on the differences on having 2 MP 1.2ghz 266 fsb 256 kb vs. barton 3200 at 2.17ghz 400 fsb 512 kb

Which would be better...and why?

The major difference between the 2 is that the 1st rig has 2 CPUs while the 2nd has only one.
In heavy multitasking the dualie will be faster, you'll be able to say play a game and encode a movie at the same time.
Having 2 1.2GHz CPUs doesn't mean you'll have 2.4GHz PC, it means you'll have 2 1.2GHz CPUs, as simple as that.

If you want a fast gaming machine, go for the barton, if you want a great multitasking PC w/o THAT great game performance (unless the game has MPC capability) go for the dualie.

Also there are programs that work much faster with two CPUs (even slower) than one CPU as they were meant for multiprocessing..

In short, with a dual 1.2ghz, with a few exceptions, nothing will get done faster than it will on a single 1.2ghz processor, BUT you can do twice as many things at once before everything starts to slow down.