As it stands currently the flagship processors from both AMD and Intel are pretty even in terms of overall performance. It really depends on what games/applications you run as to which is slightly faster there. Truth be told as far as performance goes either CPU will be limited by the other components in your system.
I personally still favor AMD for the cost/performance level, but I won't say not to get a P4 system at this point IF AND ONLY IF you can get one with the 478 pin socket. The current P4s (including some 1.9 and 2 Ghz models) are using a 423 pin socket that will no longer be supported for future P4s. This means upgrading the processor will not be possible.
I also strongly discourage buying a system using the i845 chipset on it's motherboard, because doing so WILL allow the Athlon to "blow the P4 away." (The i845 chipset currently uses the older SDR Sdram at pc100 speeds. This really hurts the P4, as it's design MUST have high memory bandwidth to work.) This leaves only 2 chipsets available to work with, either the Intel i850 (Rambus ram) or VIAs new P4x266 (Intel is currently after VIA in court for this one). By the end of this year Intel will likely release it's "northwood" core P4s, which will be faster clock per clock than the older, current, "Willamette" core P4s. All Northwoods will be 478 pin processors.
Also, PLEASE don't fall for some of the very cheap P4 systems on the market. I saw an ad yesterday for a P4 system for under $1000. The specs of this system would likely result in a computer no faster than a top of the line P2 300Mhz.
They were: P4 1.3 Ghz, Intel i845 based board with 64 Mb of cheap pc100 ram, a 5400 rpm 20 gig HD, integrated sound, and the real performance killer - a 32 Mb TNT2 M64 video card. Advertising this system as "cutting edge" amounts to false advertising IMO.
Right now I can guarantee you that all name brand systems are cutting corners (including Dell and especially Gateway). Either build the system yourself or have your local computer store build it for you.
If you go the AMD route you will be able to use the future Athlon XP processors with a bios update. AMD users should definately go for a DDR ram based system as well. Very soon (next month) VIA kt266a (the 'a' is incredibly important, kt266 boards have been out for a long time already and are about average in performance) and Nvidia's nForce based boards are going to "raise the bar" in performance for Athlon based systems. (Take a look at some recent Anandtech articles at
www.anandtech.com for more info here.)
It's also important to mention that there are some important issues to deal with in regards to both AMD and Intel that you must be aware of. AMD processors REQUIRE very good heatsinks and 300W power supplies. Incorrectly mounting or the failure of a heatsink (or fan) may result in the death of the processor. Intel's P4 requires special RAM (rambus pc 800), cases, and power supplies for acceptable performance. This raises cost quite a bit. On the plus side Intel processors will not die if the heatsink is incorrectly mounted or fails BUT the P4 still requires a large heatsink and fan to cool it.
Suffice it to say that if you built an AMD Athlon system or and Intel P4 system you will be fine. It is important (to me anyway) to mention that you can get a faster system at the same price if you go AMD. Do NOT buy (or build) a Pentium 3 or Celeron powered system, they are obsolete at this point.
Look at
www.pricewatch.com for current prices on CPUs, RAM, MBs, HDs, Video cards, etc.
Hopefully this helps some of you.
I would also look at
www.anandtech.com and
www.tomshardware.com for reviews and (usually) unbiased information comparing options. (Intel guys sometimes think Tom Papst is biased toward AMD. Regardless, the benchmark numbers do not lie.)
[ 09-28-2001: Message edited by: bloom25 ]
