I am looking at upgrading my proc & of course motherboard. I have a nice Video card in AGP format (Leadtek 6800) so I will not be getting a PCI-E board. I would like to know as I look at all the procs to buy(I'm going to stay around 3200AMD64) which core is best and which socket. I see 754 & 939(which I know is newer) and I see newcastle, winchester, & more. I've heard different arguments(non convincing) about which one is a better overclocker and that 754 is better because AMD proc's don't really benefit from dual channel ddr in the 939 MB. Can anyone shed some intelligent light for me? Thank you! - Aaron

S939 benefits from Dual Channel substantially unlike S754. S939 Winchester 90nm has lower thermal output than S754 and overclocks much better. In fact, it OCs so nice; it's called the P4 2.4C - with a good board like MSI Neos 2 and TCCD Samsung memory, you could expect 300 mhz FSB.

If I were to get a 3200+ S939 would I see small or large gains from my 2500XP OC'd to 3200? Meaning, would it be worth the upgrade? aaron

Get a 939, no contest. The 754 has been discontinued, AMD switched to all 939. So if you ever plan on upgrading, you need 939. You wont see any huge gains by going to an 3200+ S939, but you will be able to oc it more. ASUS A7N8X-E DELUXE 2500+ Barton OC to 3200+ 1gig Corsair XMS Hightech Excalibur Radeon 9800 Pro Iceq 128mb Antec True Power 430w Dual 40gig WD.

There is no contest comparing 2500+ OC'ed - 3200+ (1.8 ghz to 2.2 Ghz) to S939 1.8 Ghz - 2.4 Ghz. Clock for clock S939 is much faster than AXP. However, if you own S754 running at say 2.5 GHz, the upgrade to S939 will have very small gain. A small comparison, my AXP @2.56 GHz returns 41 seconds 1M SurperPI while S939 @2.5GHz returns 33 seconds. Then, again, who needs that kind of power; and for what.:)