Which CPU for gaming purposes

[LuckyTaxi]

Building a system for a friend who will be playing WoW.
Not sure if I should get him a Sempron chip since it's $40 less than an Athlon XP 2700+
I know the thing that will cost the most is the video card.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Well, from what I hear, WOW runs great even on mid-range systems, so the Barton chips or anything higher should run the game just fine combined with a decent video card.

 

[PingSpike]

semprons are tbred Bs so they're pretty good. But xp mobiles are the chip to have for socket A if you're overclocking.

 

[lmadern]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
semprons are tbred Bs so they're pretty good......

Except the Sempron 3100+ which btw is oc'ing really well right now for me.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

No desire to OC. Will a sempron combined with 512MB of ram and a decent video card work?

A Sempron 2400 is $64 while the XP 2700 is $96.

 

[Duvie]

From what I can tell from my sempron 2400+ it is really no better then a 2000+ xp...It is clocked at 1.67ghz and that is the same as a xp 2000+....


I am running NFS Underground 2 1028res with high settings with a radeon 8500 and 512mbz of ddr...Runs perfect.....

The 2400+ IS 333MHZ FSB so that is nice versus the 2000+ or 2100+ xps which were 266fsb. Memory stays in sync then with my pc2700 Buffalo sticks....The 2700+ xp I believe is like 2.0+ghz and 333mhz fsb as well so that may be nice but for 30 more dollars...may be a toss up...

Also let me tell you the chip in my opinion runs hot with a stock cooler at idle if you dont have case cooling....I was like 50c at idle in case with side open....I turned my side fan to a intake and dropped temps to 44c idle, which I still think is high for a low speed chip. I am running on giga board so I dont know how much comes in to play there. At load the chips does well....This chip only seems to have a 8-10c swing during full load with the stock sink...

In the end since I like to run my sons box as a FH box as well I would perfer the more clock of the 2700+...but it will get your mission done...