Price Guides November 2004: CPU and Motherboards

Intel Processors - Socket 775

With the release of the P4 570J (3.8GHz), Intel shows that they are serious about the new socket 775 and the end of 478 in the near future. Of course, the 570J also shows that Intel's high-clock chips tend to be the very same space heaters that AMD chips were once known to be. This is likely to become even more of an issue as Intel gears up for their dual core processors.

Regardless of heat output, which isn't an issue for the majority of buyers out there, both AMD's and Intel's top-end processors are running neck-and-neck for performance depending on what applications you utilize on them. Intel always has been, and still is, the leader for media encoding and content creation. So, unless gaming is your key target, Intel is definitely a good place to pick up a processor.

This week's best value comes to us in the form of a 2.8GHz Pentium 4, which carries the model number 520. The price on this processor is very reasonable, considering that it is sitting atop Intel's newest socket and chipset and will make for the most flexible upgrade path in the future.


If you want a bit of a boost in performance, for about $40 more, you can pick up the 3.2GHz version of this chip - the Pentium 4 540. Both chips will likely be more than enough to keep your machine going at full tilt for a long time without having to worry much about upgrading over and over again. Going with a chip any higher will decrease the cost to benefit ratio of the purchase by a good margin and in the end, will not be as much of a value on a dollar for dollar basis.