I wouldn't sell the pentium 4 short by any means, the pentium is still a good solid workhorse, Granted - test's may show AMD some advantage. But a few millionths of a second in speed is not discernible to the human eye or brain and doesn't make a grandiose difference overall in performance. The AMD's run hot as a 2 dollar pistol and you can expect to add additional fans to dissapate the extra heat generated or see some slow downs or stalls when the processor is strained and stressed, just my experience and opinion, but not many on this forum may agree with me.