so a newbie apologises! I have an MSI mobo hanging about that takes "up to Athlon XP 1900+".. so I thought I would do some trawling about for a cpu.

My question is this: why is the Athlon XP1800+ more expensive than the Athlon XP1900+?

And which one would you guys recommend I get?

Thanks in advance, and once again apologies for a **** type question!

-One answer is demand and supply. Anyway, who cares... how much money do you have?

-The fastest one you can afford.

could also be related to them having different cores maybe.

Thanks chaps. I dont actually have a great deal to spend, and as this will be my first build (erm bit scary!) I decided to use the mobo I had which is an MSI K7N420 Pro. It is an ATX mainboard and has sound and graphics onboard. Both processors seem to be Palomino and I just cant see why the "faster" chip would be cheaper than the other, but hey, as stated: "who cares" heheh! Anyway, I shall carry on reading the boards for info, and any info would be very much appreciated.

It could be that certains boards have problems with multipliers used above the one in the 1800+ ( 11.5x ).

It's a bit like EDO Ram being more expensive then SDRam & PC133 SDRam being more expensive the PC2100 DDRam. It could simply be shops trying to squeeze that extra money out of people that don't have the choice.

Just thought I'd let you know that according to MSI's website, the K7N420 Pro supports both the Athlon XP 2400+ & the Athlon XP 2600+. You may need to flash your bios and if thats the case many here will caution against that (although I personally don't think its anything to be frightened by).

Here's the link to the bios page for your motherboard:

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/bios/bos/spt_bos_detail.php?UID=10&kind=1

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and help. Yep, flashing the bios does instill fear, but nothing ventured etc!

I very much appreciate everything guys!