g'day, I no this is a debatable question, but i'm not sure! Is the P4 3.0GHz better than a Athlon 3000+? I heard that intel kicks ass compared to the Athlon in games. What are your ideas? I'm on a very strict budget (I'm a student!) and i have a crap video card (Geforce 2 MX 200 64mb!), I'm going to keep the vid card until i get more money 4 the upgrade. So, AMD or Pentuim? If i choose the athlon, will i see much difference between the 2 cpus? What mobo should i get (prefably Gigabyte, no ASUS 'cos i had a bad xperience with them!)?

Either chip is a waste of money with that graphics card if you want it for games. The P4 runs at 3GHz The Athlon runs at 2.2GHz Although it looks like the P4 is miles better, the Athlon can perform more instructions per clock cycle than the P4, so the pentium is faster, but less efficient. Think of it like two vans travelling 10 times each way between two depots: Van A: fixed to 30mph and can carry 40 parcels maximum. Van B: Fixed to 20mph and can carry 60 parcels maximum. Which is better???? (Sorry for the terrible analogy) Basically, the AMD is called the 3000+ because it does roughly the same workload in a period of time as a true 3000MHz processor (Such as the P4).. I'd probably give both of them a miss and buy an AMD AthlonXP 2500+ Mobile Barton instead. Mobile because it's the one they use in the laptops (it fits a standard socket A AMD motherboard) it has a low voltage core and a low temperature and the mulitplier is unlocked for easier overclocking. It's loads cheaper than either chip mentioned and can be comfortably overclocked to be better than either too.

The biggest difference is that the P4 will run cooler. And the P4 does seem to score slightly better. Not much though.

If you can afford a P4 3ghz then get a A64 instead.. FuRY

i got amd athlon xp3300+ ind im on a strict budget too. Before i got that i went to pc club got a p4 motherboard and p4 3.2ghz. I also bought far cry. I didn;t like it. graphics wasnt that good and it was glitchy. I went back and got amd mainboard and athlon xp 3200+ it is much better. I can run far cry, call of duty, splinter cell, underground and ,much more at the same time. peace

Some strict budget there mad russian, lets see, the P4 alone would have set you back 500.

Not to mention ineffective in price/performance. If you were gonna spend that kind of money on an Athlon 3200+, it wouldn't have been much more to get an Athlon 64, but hey, it's not my money. MCSE, MCSA Messaging, baby!