Which processor for sheer speed?

If I were to decide on one of the three types of processors mentioned below which one you guys think or know will give me the best speed in real world situation. Also if anyone can give me an idea why a particular one to go for and what makes it faster in layman's terms I would greatly appreciate it.

Class / Rating - Sempron 3000
Clock Speed - 2000 MHz
Front Side Bus - 333 MHz
Level 1 Cache - 128 KB
Level 2 Cache - 512 KB
Cache Type - Pipeline Burst

Class / Rating - Athlon 64 3000 (64-Bit/socket 939)
Clock Speed - 1800 MHz
Front Side Bus - 1600MHz Hyper Transport Link
Level 1 Cache - 128 KB
Level 2 Cache - 512 KB

Class / Rating - Pentium 4 530
Clock Speed - 3000MHz
Front Side Bus - 800MHz
Level 1 Cache - 16KB
Level 2 Cache - 1024KB

Its the combination of different aspect of the CPU's that make it very confusing for me, for instance slower clock speed but faster FSB or higher clock speed but smaller Level 1 cache and so on and so forth.....

Thanks

 

Right, well we can see that the Pentium has the fastest clockspeed at 3ghz, sempron being second at 2ghz and then athlon 64 at 1.8ghz. but the athlon 64 has the faster fsb with the sempron being the slower of the 3. which ever you choose to buy depends on what you want to be running on your computer, so for games i'd personally go with the athlon 64, but for everyday use like net browsing, word docs etc then the pentium would do me fine.
i'm only giving my opinions here so don't hold me to any of it!

 

id vote for the pentium ... pentiums are best for multimedia and while AMDs tend to score a few FPS higher in game benchmarks im not to sure the Athlon you mentioned would outperform the P4 mentioned ...

when i was looking for a CPU ... i looked at what I could get for 200$ and it came down to a P4 2.8 northwood and athlon XP 3200 ... and while the 3200 managed to beat my P4 in some game benchmarks it was only by 1 or 2 FPS ... but in multimedia benchmarks my P4 ran circles around the 3200, some at even triple the score

but in the end i would suggest getting whichever is cheaper(the P4 or athlon 64) .. as those two are pretty much even

 

Pretty much even, hardly, ones a 64 bit processor the other is only 32 bit. How is that similar?

Personally I would go with the Athlon 64 3000 (64-Bit/socket 939)

 

while there are 64 bit apps and software and OS' they are not directed toward the consumer market ... so odds are that anyone who uses a computer w/ windows XP is not going to have any use for a 64-bit chip as the software won't make use out of it .. not untill a 64-bit OS hits the consumer market

 

Yes but its better to plan ahead then ass backwords. Anyways who know linux is a true 64 bit os depending on the version and may work very well for what he wants.

 

IMHO by the time 64-bit windows comes out the current crop of amd 64 bitters will be outdated ... that's why Im waiting on the 64bit thing ... but to each his own ...

 

My system is a dual boot (Mandrake 10 with Windows XP) and I am being honest here that I had no clue that Linux is a true 64 bit OS! Being a newbie to Linux I need to catch up a lot.

Guys, I appreciate your response so far and I am sure some more will come along with their opinion as well.

Creating this thread was beneficial to me as I learned something new today, thanks!

 

the A64 hands down, it's just that bit faster than the p4.

 

Mandrake 10 isn't 64 bit. You can get true 64 bit Linux OS's but it's a special order type thing, to get one you'd have to order it as such.

 

I've got a 2.8 Intel (533 FSB) and the AMD 3200. The 3200 runs circles around the intel. Don't know about the 2.8 with the 800 FSB thought.
Neweggs has the Intel 3.2 800 fsb and 1 meg L-2 cache on sale for 215.00 It will out run anything above except for Major Grumpys FX

 

All I can say is go with the Athlon 64

 

They make 64 versions of linux that you can legaly obtained for free.

 

Like everyone else said, I would go for the A64.