I need the collective to be my conscience...not sure what to do.

Ok I'm in the market for a new chip. I've been waiting till the end of may drop to buy so now I'm a-looking and this is my dilemma.

Do I go for my dream processor...the 2.4 Norty for $385 ish? Or do I go for the cheaper 1.8 Norty for $170 ish..and take the extra two hundred and buy some other goodies with it (like a 2nd harddrive for RAID, optical keyboard, new monitor, vid card, sound card, yes I need lots of goodies).

I intend this to be my premier game system for the next few years. What would you do?

P.S. My dream is to overclock the 2.4 and get mad, mad, 3Ghz+ speed out of it...shouldn't everyone have a dream!?

i would go with the 1.8 and put the extra $$$ in my pocket. but that's just because i'm a poor college student. besides 3ghz isnt 100% guaranteed... if it is then hey plunk down that $400.

i personally get a pretty little 1.6a.

Well for a $70 dollars more there is the 2.2 Northwood. Maybe that's the best value for the performance right now....hmm....

I've got the P4 2.4 and am not having much luck with OCing it above 110fsbx24. Take a look on my experience so far, we've got the same MB. I'm pretty sure with super-cooling and vmod I'll get some good numbers.

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=92511

If I were watching the costs, I think I'd go for the 1.6a and put the money saved away. You can OC the 1.6a to a pretty good level, it seems somewhere close to the 2.2-2-4 level or even higher if lucky. Wait a year then you'll probably be able to buy a 3.2 with the money that you saved.

I, personally, reccommend the lower speed. Why? Overclocking it to the same speed as the higher speed one will give you a higher FSB setting. This will overclock the memory, video card, and other components more. Maybe you won't hit 3000, but your investment in other components will boost your performance a lot, too.