Oh no... another pointless thread wasted by fanboys galore. Here's a tip: it doesn't matter.
As far as the "gigahertz" myth... that's why AMD has a power rating. And it works relatively well. Look at benchmarks.... you mostly see the clumped together based on gigahertz for Intel and PR for AMD. There are a few exceptions (the Athlon is good at FPU and SSE2 is owned by Intel)... but for the most part, its even.
And the whole "AMD makes better chips because they don't need as much gigahertz to compete"-line is BS. If we fell for that, then some of the MIPS processors would destroy anything (their FPU is a LOT faster than AMD/Intel.... and they run at 1.2GHz). AMD and Intel took two different routes to chip design--each with its own pros and cons (what a surprise). The Athlon core is efficient, but not as scalable (hence the lower clock speeds)... but the Intel chip can blow the physical speed through the roof.
Don't "prefer" a brand over another... look for what you want. AMD definitely rules the roost sub-2.4GHz. But at 2.4, the Athlon is $165 and the P4 2.4B is $183 (right off pricewatch). Them's pretty close prices... and shockingly enough, pretty close performance. Buy what you want and quit with the blatant fanboy-ism. If you like AMD because AT THAT TIME they have the best price/performance ratio in your price range, by all means, buy it. If you want Intel (for whatever reason), go for it.
And, by the way, I have a P4 2.26 system AND a Athlon 1800+ system right now.