I have to agree with puntoMX as usual here. The 3 main differences between the E5200 and the E7200: -33MHz clock speed (basically nothing) -slightly higher FSB (very little gained there too) -2MB vs 3MB cache, which probably won't make much of a difference either (depending on what you do of course). If you look at E7200 vs E8200 comparisons (3MB vs 6MB cache -- doubling the size), you'll see it makes like 5% difference (average) in games, and far less than that in most apps. So a 50% difference in cache size won't even make that much difference. The E7200 is ~50% more expensive, and will give you a whole 5% more speed sometimes. Or to put it another way, the E5200 offers ~95% of the speed for 2/3 of the price. It's a good budget CPU that OC'es nicely (it might even OC better than the E7200) The 45nm process itself doesn't really make any difference. The E5200 is based on the same Wolfdale core as the E7200 (45nm too). But it's your hard earned cash... My nearly one year old cheapo $75 E2160 (once OC'ed) runs faster than the E8400 (at stock speed) my brother bought last week for over $200... I'm planning on buying a pair of E5200's after xmas myself. Sorry but the 3mb cache and 1066mhz fsb helps a bit more than that. Look at this chart and you will see the E7200 beating the E4700, which is pretty much the same as the E5200 but with a faster clock speed and 65nm, at 37/43 benchmarks!: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/deskt...chmarks,31.html Then click on any benchmark then check the E7200 AND E4700 and click compare. I read the E7200 can OC up to 3Ghz on stock voltages and cooling, and I wouldn't want or need to take it up any more than that anyway. Anyway thanks, but I think I will go with an E7200. Here you are telling me to get a cheaper CPU, yet at the same time, people are here telling me a 9500GT would not be as good a choice as a 9600GT even though I only wanna play Halo type graphics games which would run settings maxed on my 19inch 1440x900 resolution monitor! ive run both these on a P3 866 with a GF4 MX 420 PCI but your right in that i didnt bother changing the graphic level much. hmm thought cache had more effect then that though i havent done research Yeah, I don't exactly get a huge kick playing games in minimum settings and hate lag too much. You forgot the PC case And you could leave this thread open for a year and EVERYONE will have a different view on what you should purchase for a new machine! What you said above looks fine! I cant see how that wont be good for a family machine The only thing i would add to that is 4 GB RAM, but thats because RAM has dropped so much in price now and makes that huge speed difference on Vista. Or did I? Look at the bottom of the list. It says "Case/PSU: Foxconn TSAA 908 + 600W PSU $92". Yeah thanks I reckon it will run alot smoother than our current family 'beast'. Celeron 2.4ghz, 512mb ddr 266 ram, 40gb ide hdd and an nvidia geforce 2 mx 400 to pump out the graphics...yeah. I will look into ram but considering there was one person here that recommended 1gb ram, 2gig should suffice. Think i must be going blind