Damn, this thread is full of misconceptions! "AMD part numbers don't reflect the actual clock speed, but rather what AMD reckons to be the Pentium clock speed that would be needed to equal the performance." Not quite.. The model number is representitive of how fast the previous generation of Athlons would have to be running to keep up. "Most professionals use the AMD CPU for cost savings and business applications, however, Gamers and serious high-end Animation and graphics intensive users go to the Intel because the AMD generates a lot more heat than the Intel CPU's." Outdated.. The P4 generates a lot more heat than the Athlon these days man. The latest ones are real bad. The new 3.2Ghz Prescott P4 runs about 30F hotter than the Northwood P4 (163F vs 133F) at the same clock speed. Except for the initial Athlons (many many years ago), and now the current P4s, the heat dissipation between P4 and Athlon is a couple Watt difference. The so-called overheat problem of Athlons was not a result of higher heat generated, it was the lack of a thermal diode. Intel chips have had a thermal diode to shut them off and protect themselves from overheating for years. Most gamers go with Athlon because it is cheaper and faster. (I should know, I am a gamer and have been building systems for gamers for almost 10 years). Business users tend to go with the Dell's, thus they go with Intel. Animators go with the CPUs that used to always be better in those apps due to competitors incredibly slow FPU performance - Intel. However, if you look around you will see more and more firms switching to Athlon64s every day. Sandoppe - People who claim to have problems with Athlons or tell you not to buy them are either misinformed or just simply zealots. Bottom line is you will be doing great with a CPU from either company. The P4 and AthlonXP and Athlon64 are all fast CPUs.