256kb L2 Cache

I was thinking is 256kb of cache enough for gaming? It seems really low, but i don't wanna get the 512kb barton cuz it's goes over my budjet

how much are you planning to spend?
do you have any potential choices already?

if you were choosing between the 2400 and the 2500 i would go with the 2500
but if it was more like a choice between 2000 and 2500 go with the 2000

i can't find the benchmarks my self right now (too lazy), search for yourself and look at the speeds and see if you work it out for yourself

I would have thought it was pretty straight forward myself. If you can't afford it you can't have it. Don't forget that a mobo which can handle a barton chip is likely to be fairly new on the market too, so it will proably be more expensive than an older board. And you will need pc2700 mem to go with it, as opposed to pc2100, more money laid out.

It's not quite as simply as which processor, you've got to look at the things that go with it. but for gaming, anything above a 2000+ should do the trick, you can always turn the resolution down a little without really spoiling anything if it is a bit slow. And if you are turning the res down, you don't need as much memory on your graphics card.

The standard Intel P4 and AMD XP CPUs are more than enough for gaming.

All those CPUs with 'extra' L2/L3 cache are only for expensive high-end systems.