Price Guides July 2004: CPU and Motherboards

Back in Intel's camp, you may be seeing stars with the new processor naming conventions. Names such as "Intel Pentium 4 520" probably won't bring thoughts of a 2.8 GHz processor to mind, but that's exactly what it means. While some may question the use of this type of numbering system, it's here to stay, at least for now. So to help make things a little easier to digest, here's a quick rundown of processors we list that are already going by their new names.

Keep in mind that the processors bearing the new numbering convention are the newer socket 775 instead of the 478 which has dominated the market so far.

Luckily for us, Intel did not jump around or go crazy when numbering these chips, so at least it's pretty easy to figure out which chip is which. The other good news is that most retailers do not show much, if any, price difference between, for example, a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 and a Model 530 Pentium 4.

Now for the important question; which processor is the best deal this week? With motherboards bearing socket 775 hardware starting at around the $140 mark, the best deals will be in socket 478 for now and for that we choose Intel's Pentium 4 2.8GHz 800MHz FSB chip.