Which athlon 64x2 processor should I get?

Taken from shopping.com (box):

- AMD athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0 gHz : 2x512kb L2 CACHE : $322

- AMD athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2 gHz : 2x512kb L2 CACHE : $400
- AMD athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2 gHz : 2x1024kb L2 CACHE : $497

- AMD athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.4 gHz : 2x512kb L2 CACHE : $630
- AMD athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4 gHz : 2x1024kb L2 CACHE : $787

I dont know how much you have but you have to consider the
frequency(2gHz, 2.2gHz or 2.4gHz) but you also have to consider the L2
cache capacity (2x512kb or 2x1024kb). 2x1024kb will be more powerful
then 2x512kb (and of course, 2.4gHz is more powerful then 2gHz).

To conclude : the best would be the AMD athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4 gHz :
2x1024kb L2 CACHE : $787 and the "worst" would be the AMD athlon 64 X2
3800+ 2.0 gHz : 2x512kb L2 CACHE : $322.

After ; it's just a money problem...

If you have other questions; ask me ;)

Which do you think would be the best "bang for the buck"? I've seen
some people say that more L2 cache is more important than more
frequency, but this could be internet rumor and such. Verification
would be gravy...

Hi iceman45,
      Yes, more L2 cache is more important than more frequency
(atleast for the list of CPUs given by cagcmoa). I'm willing to bet
that 4400+ will perform much better than 4600+.
      
Reason:
	All the applications, programs or games that are executed on a
computer, are first internally broken into a sequence of instruction
to the computer. And these instructions are stored in the memory.

Consider execution of an instruction -  
B = A + 4   (Add 4 to the value stored at memory location A and store at B)

Step 1: Computer reads what has to be done from memory {Opcode fetch}
Step 2: It reads value stored at memory location A. {Memory Read}
Step 3: It calculates final value {Execution}
Step 4: It writes the result to the memory location B {Memory Write}

Thus, out of 4 steps only 1 step {Step 3} involved actual CPU
processing, rest are memory accesses.

 The point I am trying to explain is that each of these instructions
{of which your games/programs as made of} involve atleast one ?Memory
Access?. Thus, if your CPU is very fast {2 ? 3 GHz} but your memory is
slow ?..you end-up with a slow computer.

Now, here is an example of how fast memories are as compared to CPU ?

L1 cache (located inside processor) :    Same speed as CPU
L2 cache (coupled with processor)  :     2-5 times slower as compared to CPU
RAM 				         :	  10-30 times slower
Hard disks                                        :	   Too darn slow !!	

Thus, if you have more L2 ?..you are actually improving effective
memory speed (And thus the speed of your computer because memory is
the bottleneck).

I can point you to detailed technical explanations if you want to.
regards,
-ady
  
Your original question is too general to provide a meaningful answer.

Cool. Thanks for the explanation. As you can tell by the question, I'm
kind of new at this, so I'm still trying to get some technical
knowledge on this stuff (if you have any links or just more
information off the top of your head that'd be cool). I'm actually
learning about all of this stuff in school because I'm an electrical
engineering major, but I'm still mostly into my core classes, so my EE
skills are still in their infant stages. Anyway, you really confirmed
what I had thought to be correct, which will help me to make my
decision a lot faster. Thanks again to both of you.

P.S. Sorry for the over-generality of the question. This is my first
time using this. I'll do better next time...

iceman45