the a64 is somewhat better. The 64 bits versus 32 bits makes no difference right now. The a64 has no fsb but instead a bidirectional path straight from the cpu to the memory which greatly increases effective bandwidth. It also has more l2 cache. If an xp3200+ was $100 I'd say an a64 would be worth $120. Of course since the a64 is newer there is a much bigger price difference than that right now, and that's because with electronics new things are still considered to be much better than old things. At some point that value system will grow old, like it did with stereos. A good 1950 stereo sucked compared to a good 1975 stereo, but a good 1975 stereo is excellent even today.
When computer cpus hit 1ghz and ddr memory became the norm the same knee of the curve happened and aside from gaming a new computer provides only a small improvement over its predecessor. But few people experience that since their old computer is so weighed down by an old windows install. And as long as the masses remain slaves of a new M$ operating system, new computers will appear to be much better than the one they replaced, just as a new car would appear to be much better than the 3-year old car it replaced, assuming the 3-year old car had 1000 pounds of stuff in the trunk that it had accumulated over the years thanks to its operating system.
The genius of M$ is that they not only make operating systems that are planned to be obsolete, but that they force the hardware they run on to become obsolete as well. Which is funny since with a fresh os install all hardware is as good today as it was the first day you took it out of the box. Its only the os that makes it seem old.
If you do not play games, stick a 7200rpm harddrive inside a 1ghz machine with any speed ddr memory and a fresh win98 install and you'll see that its very close in speed to anything you can buy new.
