Need Help Choosing CPU

[bigpapaunknown]

Hi guys, I need help choosing a CPU. I'm hesitating between the AMD Athlon Venice 3000, 3200, or the 3500.

I was wondering if there was a huge difference in performance between the 3 that justifies the difference in price. the 3000 is $146, the 3200 is $190 and the 3500 is $224. Money isn't a huge issue, but if I could save some money for almost similar performance it would help.

I'd use this computer mainly for school work and games.

This is the rest of my build:

processor: ?
motherboard: EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
memory: OCZ Performance Series 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
gfx card: 3D Radeon X800 XL
hard drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
case: Thermaltake SViking VA4000BWS Black Steel ATX
power supply: Fortron FSP400 400W

Another piece of important information is that I probably WON'T be overclocking for the simple reason that I'm a total noob at building computers and just getting one together is good enough for me at this point. I read that the 3000 is great for overclocking, but I won't be able to take advantage of that.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[spiritwalker2223]

Do you plan on overclocking your cpu? If you do you should get fairly close performance out of the slower cores.

 

[Fallengod]

Its hard to say but if youre not ocing, id get the 3500. zipzoomfly has 3500+ for $218 with free shipping. Thats pretty close to 3200 price.

 

[bigpapaunknown]

So you think that the greater performance justifies the extra cost?

 

[coomar]

if you don't plan on overclocking, get the fastest speed you can afford

with the 3000+ and the board you chose, you should be able to easily match the 3500+ speed