I am planning on buying a computer thru the computer shows, I want the equivalent of Pentium 4 or better, and have heard AMD Athlon are better and better priced, that is fine but what else do I need to look for, I have heard that I should get at least a 266 MHz, and do not know what that is, would I be safe to believe the people at the computer shows? I am just learning about the hardware stuff, and want a good one for my son. Any help would be much apprecieated.

amd athlon xp are better then pentium 4 and amd xp are cheaper and it perform better. the 266mhz is the front side bus or maybe they are talking about the 266ddr memory. here's a layout pentium 4 + rambus memory or athlon xp + 266 ddr memory. im running the athlon xp system which is better, so i suggest u buy the athlon xp which is cheaper and better. hope i helped you with some of your questions

the p4's and athlons offer similar performance but the athlons are cheaper. go for around an xp1700 which will be cheaper than top of the range. check out www.dabs.com who sell full pcs and parts on the web with simple order forms on there pages. id steer clear of computer shows for a full system because you may have probs sorting it out if something gos wrong.

um... all athlon xp's are good but can be pricey. right now im running a athlon xp 1500 overclocked (multiplier changed) at 1800 ghz. it shows athlon xp 1900 on bios. so as u know by now any athlon can be same ghz with multiplier tweaked on the cpu. all athlon xp are same =)

Local Dealer is better for support if something goes wrong and it usually will no matter what you buy.An AMD chip is better not only because it costs less but also because at a lower MHZ it is faster than Pentium on most applications especially games.An XP1700 should last awhile if matched to the right MotherBoard and Memory. Luck

Hey Darlene, If u want good performance and cheap price i suggest u get one of these P4's or AMD XP's (P4 is better for office type programs, AMD is better for gaming and visual programs). Next get a lot of RAM!!! It's the cheapest way to build a fast computer. I suggest DDR ram (maybe 512mb). One thing to remember, P4's can use both DDR ram and RDRAM (which is expensive but a little better then DDR) and AMD's only use DDR. See on which configuration u can get a better deal. good luck

athlon xp kick ass i would never by a p4 except for the athlons can't run rdram still all i do is play games so yeh i say get a athlon xp mines a 1700 with a geforce 4 card and 256ddr memory.