Sorry for this shameless plug, but try looking at

www.tomshardware.com

This should fill you in a little.

At current rates the Athlon DDR combo is the cheapest (and only a tiny little bit behind Intel's latest processors [Northwood core]).

the 2000+ (1.67 GHz [i think]) athlon is faster and cheaper than a 2GHz P4 (with the Willamette core).

Remember there are two types of P4 on the market, the Willamette core (1GHz to 2GHz) and the Northwood core (2GHz +)

Its worthwile noting that the the northwood core is intels latest - so the system is more likley (if they stop changing the sockets) to be upgradeable, but AMD are designing a new Athlon core to keep up so it may not be as upgradable.

For my money - Athlon DDR.

Warrend