the only cpu to consider today when buying a new rig is the amd64. make sure you get a socket 939 mobo, preferably nforce4 ultra or sli(brand new mobos so you might have to hold your horses a few weeks,neither one of them are that much more expensive but offers more of everything and better features then the vanilla nforce4) and if possible go for the amd64 3500+ its a 90nm cpu and thus renders less heat and uses less energy then the other top cpus from amd. the amd64 3200 is probably your best bang for the buck tho. performance wise amd64 wins the big majority of all the tests, the p4 has its strong points, but you do get less power for more money generaly speaking and no 64 bit compability and a realy thin upgrade path considering there wont be any faster p4s then 3.8, and vue doesnt look like an exception. anyway, enough of my rant, check a up to date and very good test by anandtech. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2249&p=1