Athlon64 is a very good way to go. Cheaper and faster than Intel. The current Athlon64 range has one little problem however, its memory controller cannot handle more than 2 banks of double sided RAM at 200 Mhz. If you use 4 banks, the speed will drop to 166 Mhz.

About WinXP 64 bit: no problem on my machine. nVidia chipsets and graphics cards are supported right out of the box. AC97 audio also works fine.

Linux 64 bit has been out for quite a while, and I've only heard very good reviews.

I haven't had any hardware issues, neither with AMD nor with Intel. Generally AMD is cheaper and faster than Intel.

The Intel IA64 architecture is VERY interesting. But only for heavy server applications. The Pentium 4 with 64 bit extensions is just that - 64 bit slapped on as an extra. The Athlon64 is a native 64 bit CPU with a very good 32 bit emulator built in - good enough to beat a native 32bit Pentium 4 most of the time.

The third option of course is an Apple G5. But only if you have way too much money. Edited to add: Devices that don't work have to do with device drivers. Those are written by the companies that make the devices, not by MS. It's true that quite a few devices haven't had their drivers updated yet. And - WinXP 64 bit has been developed on AMD CPUs. Simply because the Intels weren't developed yet at the time. I expect WinXP 64 bit to run better on an AMD than on an Intel.

Message edited on: 07/05/2005 12:54

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