How much would you pay for a unlocked barton?

Specifically a 2500+

I saw two on ebay, both of which are already over the $100 mark.
Does the fact that it is unlocked justify the extra money it costs to buy it. Or would great ram and and a good mobo outweigh the extra costs b/c you could achieve a higher FSB?

Is the multiplier of extreme importance anymore? If so, I'll shop around and look for an unlocked one, but from what you guys have said in other threads, it doesnt seem to be that big of a deal.

New locked Bartons tend to overclock more but you do need quality PC3200 RAM to do an FSB overclok with them.

Question is how high can your RAM overclock?

I dont know, I don't have it yet...its Mushkin Black Level 2 (512 stick)

The PC3500 is guaranteed to go to 217, and it'll most likely do a good bit more than that. At any rate, 217x11 is 2387, which will take some pretty good air cooling to keep down.

Anyway, I wouldn't pay more than the current locked Barton price for an unlocked chip. As c627627 pointed out, most of the new locked Bartons will do better than the older, unlocked chips.

Newer chips are better, and the locked ones are all newer

I saw a week 47 for sale today, and at a bargain price too. I would have happily bought it if I needed it (and could afford it). An Unlocked chip isn't worth a penny more than the retail price for a new, locked Barton. Save your money, and buy a locked barton - and spend the change on good RAM (like your Mushkin ).

For some reason I'm all giddy and excited knowing that soon we will be seeing batch week 01 processor's floating about (year 2004 of course! 0401 ).