An excellent cpu, though were I to purchase an upgrade today, I'd go for a larger L2 cache model so all the compiling inherent in gentoo wouldn't take quite as long. That said, this is cpu is leaps and bounds faster than any other I've tried including an 3-unit athlonXP cluster. Overclocks decently, and the retail fan is quiet and keeps the cpu pretty cool too. As with any 64bit cpu, you'll have to deal with a fair bit of unstable software releases. I would suggest either going to socket 939 or a larger cache if you have the money, but this would certainly not be a bad choice in any situation.

CPU coupled with nForce3 250Gb chipset on DFI Lanparty nf3 250gb

output of cat /proc/cpuinfo:
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 14
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3400+
stepping : 0
cpu MHz : 2411.043
cache size : 512 KB
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips : 4827.17
TLB size : 1024 4K pages
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp