Back in June 04, AMD released the Athlon 64 3700+ for about $700. Ends up, this is the fastest socket 754 chip that will ever be made as AMD moved to the socket 939 (essentially the same but allows for dual channel memory).

Well, if you're like me and have a socket 754 board and are looking for an upgrade, I just found out that you can get this chip for $200 shipped - NEW or $220 shipped with OEM fan. Link. I just ordered one last week from that same link (eBay). If we ever get that BF2Bench thing going, I can do some before and after tests and share the graphs with you guys.

I have an AMD Athlon 64 2800+. This 3700+ will take me to 2.4ghz - a 33% increase for $200 isn't bad!

So, if anyone is using a slower Athlon 64 or a Sempron processor of even the same speed, this should be a good upgrade.

Ehh.. I wouldn't waste the money on a CPU upgrade like that.. With 754 you're suck with a slower HT link that shares bandwidth with the memory controler. the reason 939 is better is because it has the memory controler on-chip. Depending on if you really need more CPU power or more memory bandwidth.. spending money on that CPU won't make a huge difference. Wait a generation, and go dual core.

I basically need a CPU upgrade now, and if I upgrade to 939 or some other socket, I'd have to add the cost of a new motherboard (probably around $150) to that $200 and then I'd want to switch to PCI-E, which would mean a new video card, so add on another$250 or so for a decent card. All of that to add PCI-E and dual channel doesn't seem worth it at the time.

The new CPU is basically to hold me over until that next generation comes out. Then I'll wait for those prices to come down.

Coincidently was checking that price earlier this week too. Don't really need it though. running a 3200+ now

€169,- here

http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/88445

If I need to, I can get another socket 754 motherboard sometime next year that has PCI-E on it. They are super cheap too. The only draw back is they don't support dual channel and are limited to 2.4ghz. But at least it'll be an option if I want to babystep my way to PCI-E for Battlefield 3 or something.

My AMD Athlon 64 2800+ is on eBay with an hour left and is at [url=http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6841242539&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1]US$90[/url0. I assume it'll go over $100 with 24 "watchers". That means the 30% speed increase only cost me ~$100 (or less). I think that's pretty fair! With this, I might have bought myself another year or so and be able to skip socket 939 altogether and goto whatever the next socket is.