Some people prefer Intel chipset motherboards over VIA or SIS chipset motherboards. In that case you have to stick to a P4 CPU, since Intel does not make chipsets for Athlon. But I see many people with P4 motherboards using a VIA or SIS chipset and those motherboards are just as good (or bad) as the Athlon motherboards. Anyway, the problems with VIA motherboards seem to be a thing of the past mainly. About the temperature. Yes the Athlons get hotter than the pentiums, but then again the Athlons are designed to be able to run at higher temperatures then the P4 too. So it doesn't matter that they get hotter. I'd mainly focus on getting a cooling fan that doesn't make too much noise.