Honestly, I would wait another month or so until the Core 2 series hits the market.
The Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4GHz, 4MB L2 cache) is right up your price alley (projected to be $316 at launch), and will perform better than the Athlon 64 X2 3800+.
Even if you don't want to buy the Core 2 Duo, I would still wait another month, as AMD is going to be having drastic price cuts on their processors as the Core 2 series is released, to be able to remain profitable in this upcoming time of performance defecit which AMD is going to be experiencing.
|