Help! Athlon XP 2400+ Tbred vs. 2500+ Barton

[qcman11]

Hello all,

I am a newbie and am trying to build a new computer. I don't know if I should choose the 2400+ Tbred or the 2500+ Barton--the price difference is very little. From what I know, the 2400+ runs at a faster clockrate (2GHz), but the 2500+ has a larger L2 cache(512K) and a faster FSB(333MHz) but a slower clockrate (1.83GHz?). I am not planning to overclock the cpu as I have no skills in doing so--although later I might. What is the difference in performance? I have bought some cheap PNY DDR PC2700 Ram to use with my new computer, is there a great difference in performance if I use PC3000 DDR instead, given I'm not a hardcore gamer? Thank you in advance for helping me out.
QCman11

 

[NYHoustonman]

I would say go with the Barton 2500+ and the 2700 RAM. That would be a good setup, especially considering you don't seem to be crazy about games.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I agree, the 2500+ is the way to go, and if you are planning to run it in a Nforce2 board the 2700 will be faster than the 3000 since you aren't planning to overclock because synch>asynch with NF2 chipset.