ok first off is the Intel P4 Extreme 3.2 with 2mb L2 cache flawless or is it not a good investment? and if purchased would the Intel 875P Mobo (with extreme support) be the way to go?

Spending 1K on a CPU is never a good investment. If you want Intel, go with a lower clocked CPU that clocks up nicely. Hell, I would run a Duron or Celeron before I spent a thousand dollars on a CPU.

There are many other options that could give you near the same performance for much less money. What is your preference?

well im an intel fan and im not really much of an overclocker b/c i hear it strains the gear alot and i dont know how to do it .... i really wanna learn water cooling and how to make one of those sweet ass resivours like the newest one in the gallery (12/7) So therefor i think either the P4 3.2 Extreme is the best course of action.. I looked at the AMD 64 FX but i hear its not as good and many applications ex. windows dont run in 64 bit yet. so please keep the above statement into consideration. Mainly i wanna know if the processor can get the job done and kick ass while doing it. with the christmas season in mind price really is not a concern to me at this time.

The Athlon 64 FX performs competitively with the Extreme Edition. Also about $300 less. Still $700 though! Only filthy sick rich people spend that much on one computer part. Like BA said, buy a lower clocked CPU that can clock higher, and play with it a little. It may not have a massive L3 cache like the EE, but it will still perform quite well.

To answer your other question, a 875P motherboard would be the way to go, but not neccesarily the Intel 875P mobo. Other mobo's such as the Abit IC7-MAX3 or the Asus P4C800 Deluxe will perform much better than the Intel, overclocked or not.

EDIT - After reading your other post, Windows has come out with a Windows XP 64-Bit Edition that takes advantage of the 64-Bit computing era. I think thats only for the Itaniums though. gotta read up on that.

wow u must have rich parents......could they adopt me?

umm well anyway if money is no option go with the p4 3.2 extreme, if u wanna save some money go with a lower speed processor like a 2.8 or a 3.0 (half the price but not much slower)

Nismo, you are WAY off track. The trick is to take a cheap CPU and make it act like an expensive CPU. That is done through many different methods, but you expressed and interest in watercooling. OK, it's possible.

What do you want, and how much money do you have? If you can afford an EE I would like to be your personal advisor. Give me a thousand dollars and I will beat the EE performance. I get to keep the change.

Basically, there is a sweet spot for price ranges. Just under "brand new" and still above obsolete.

A 2.8 Ghz P4 would probably suit ya just fine unless you're really dead set on spending megabucks. For processors, I usually decide which way I wanna go based on the latest trends.

The last rig I built for myself is an 1800+ Athlon... but the one before that was a 1.5 Ghz P4 (which I overclocked to 1.62 and haven't had a problem with in almost two years). Build before that was an AMD K-5. I wouldn't set Intel in stone (although my next planned build is probably gonna be an Intel).

My question is why bother watercooling if you aren't planning on overclocking? Is it the chick appeal?

I gotta admit, the brag-rights on water-cooling are pretty cool.

Seperates the l337 from the uberl337!

well i dont like fan noise and it would be nice to have my comp run silent.. and yes water cooling looks cool I know a cheaper processor would be a better choice overclocked but like i said i dont know how to do that, and when i talked to ppl about overclocking they said it strains the parts of your computer alot and it wasnt a good idea. Now im not going to believe that seing as how everyone here manages fine but my main goal here is to buy a kick ass processor and not have to upgrade for at least a year or 2 years. Thanks for your information tho you all have been really helpful

But it is more for the Athlon 64 FX ram.