Help me choose which computer parts to get

[Gretzky]

I got 700 bucks to spend and I cant decide between AMD or Intel. I dont want to start any flame wars just looking for some guidence.

Intel:

ASUS P4PE/L
CORSAIR MEMORY XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series 512MB 32MX8 PC-3200C2 With Heat Spreader
Intel Pentium 4 2.4BGHz 512K 533MHz CPU Northwood P478 Processor Retail Box
ATI RADEON 9500 PRO 128MB DDR DVI AGP RETAIL
ENERMAX EG365P-VE(FC). 350W Power supply for AMD K7 & Pentium4.

AMD:

Epox Motherboard for AMD Athlon/Athlon XP/Duron Processors, Model# EP-8RDA+
AMD Athlon XP 2100+/266 FSB Thoroughbred Processor CPU 2100+/ 1.73GHz -OEM
Samsung Original DDR333 PC-2700 256MB CAS2.5 - OEM Version 2 sticks
ENERMAX EG365P-VE(FC). 350W Power supply for AMD K7 & Pentium4.
ATI RADEON 9500 PRO 128MB DDR DVI AGP RETAIL
Thermalright SLK-800(A) ( Heatsink ONLY ). All Copper heat spread. New Version

 

[edub82]

well that AMD setup looks mighty nice. what's the price comparison for those builds?

 

[mechBgon]

Nice to see you're looking at quality-brand power supplies there

Depending on what you want to do with the system, you might want to have more than 512Mb of RAM down the road. On the AMD platform, I would start with one 512Mb module so you can ramp to 1.0Gb or 1.5Gb with matching modules later (Crucial PC2700 is a good buy right now too). On the Intel platform, it is also a good plan to use large modules, since it will take a maximum of four banks of RAM (one double-sided DIMM is two banks). With people reporting that some games like SimCity4 and BF1942 sometimes run out of RAM even with 512Mb, I'm detecting a trend

 

[JSSheridan]

The Thermalright SLK-900 is out now, so you might want to consider buying one of those. Although I think the retail HSF is good enough if you are not overclocking. Peace.

 

[m1ke101]

straight up price wise its $685 vs $639 at newegg, ( i left in the corsair for the amd system for comparison). I'm sure you could get cheaper parts else where. I'd think you see very comparable performance between the two systems, assuming you oc both