Athlon64 for photo processing 512k or 1Mb cache??

[GuyGadbois]

I'm currently running an XP 1600+ with 1.25Gb ram (PC2700 if I recall) on WinXP. I would like to upgrade to a socket 939 board and get an Athlon64 CPU. My primary use for this computer will be to process my digital SLR RAW photos, with photo file sizes up to around 25 MB. I've look at the 3200+ and 3500+ CPUs, but then noticed the 3700+ with 1MB of cache was about $50-$70 more expensive than the 3200+ or 3500+. I'm not going to be gaming on this machine at all. Would I truely see a benefit from the extra cache of the 3700+? Or should I just get the 3200+ or 3500+ CPU?

I've been looking at the -- Asus A8V Deluxe (v. 2.0) K8T800 Pro -- as far as motherboards... any opinions on it? I'm just looking to make sure the MB has SATA RAID and Firewire onboard.

 

[K8MAN]

if i were u i would look into a 3800+X2. Lots of photo programs are multy-threaded.

The know-most-of-it-all formally known as BOBSHACK

 

[GuyGadbois]

That would add about another $125 on top of the 3700+'s price. Not sure I can swing that. I'll mainly be using Phase One's C1-Pro software and Photoshop CS. Do those programs take advantage of dual core processors? I'm not sure if that is something I can do at this point. I think I'm really just concerned with would I really seea difference in my applications with the extra cache of the 3700+.