Processors

Ok. I have a few questions about the AMD Athlon processors.

1.) Why is the GHz rating of the XP 2600 higher (2.13 GHz) than the XP 2800 (2.07 GHz)?

2.) What is the difference between the Athlon XP and MP?

3.) Would someone be so kind as to find me the best possible Athlon XP processor (preferably boxed) for $80 or less. If its not a boxed on the processor + fan price must be less than $80 as well. Looking for a 2400 or higher.

 

I would go for at least XP 2500 barton core 333fsb 512 cache, at the moment the cheapest retail box version ($87.00) I could find on web is here:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80170-R
Is great cpu for the money, Lot's of people here at MG are running these, I got two rigs running them.
You can find OEM for less, but no fan and heat sink you would have to buy seperatly, if ya look I'll bet you can get for under $80
If ya cant find for less than surly you could scrape up another $7.00, it's worth it.

The cheapest retail boxed 2400 with shipping $83.75 I found is:
http://www.buyxtremegear.com/axp2400box.html

The differance in 2600 & 2800 GHZ , GHZ differance is slight, but isnt necessarily the main factor in the cpu overall speed, the 2800 is faster and has larger cache,

Athlon MP for servers:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_756_809,00.html

Athlon XP for desktop's:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_3734,00.html

 

The difference between an Athlon XP and an Athlon MP is this. An MP is certified and has been tested to run in SMP or multi processor mode in a dual processor motherboard. The XP is the same exact processor as an MP it just hasn't been certified nor tested but that doesn't mean that it won't work. In fact many people i know have dual proc machines running 2 XP's and they run perfectly fine and stable.