I would recommend an Athlon 64 (Whatever speed you can afford) I just picked up the new 3400+ shipped today should get it on Wednesday. I also picked up the Abit Max 3 MB whatever it is called for it. My current setup is a P4 2.8C with the 875 chipset. I have been running it for about 6 months and chose to go with the Athlon 64 for these reasons. Not one CPU has excited me as much as the Athlon 64 did when it came out. I would have the say that this is the most exciting processor since the Pentium II. Now why is that? Its new and exciting I can now run a new OS, Windows XP 64bit beta will be installed on Wednesday. Now what difference is that going to give me from the 32bit version? Probably not much at first, but when I start getting 64bit apps I will probably see some difference. Now Intel has their heads in a gutter. They keep delaying the prescott and who knows when it will actually be out. Anyway computers are going to change a ton second half 2004. AMD will go to socket 939, PCI Express will be out, and new video cards from ATI and Nvidia. 2004 is going to be a very exciting year. We will also see Windows XP 64bit released and apps for the new OS. AMD is the first with 64bit that can also run 32 bit apps at very good speeds. Now Intel is doing nothing about 64bit. Sure they have Itanium, but hmm that looks a lot like the Pentium Pro did when that was released and everyone needed good 16bit and good 32bit performance. Intel didn't learn and they probably never will learn until another company starts taking a significant amount of market share. And as long as Dell only sells Intel that probably isn't going to happen anytime soon. All in all I have owned Intel and AMD processors probably equal amounts of both. I do change processors once or twice a year because of the cool new stuff factor thing. Right now I think that AMD has a very solid processor with the Athlon 64. Things could very well change second quarter this year, but for now AMD has a winner. I have a feeling that prescott will be a big disapointment, I could very well be wrong, but I find it hard to believe that Intel will be able to keep its P4 architecture going much faster without using some serious and loud cooling. Anyway good luck on what you deside I am sure you will look at all the reviews and deside what is the best processor for you.
Dan