AMD
Looks like the majority likes AMD best huh? ... and there is a good reason for that too. Firstly, the price... very important for most of todays buyers. Secondly, AMD seems to care a bit more about the customers than Intel does, whereas Intel only wants to make money and make their product look better (why make people like that rich??). Thirdly, despite the extra cache and all those stuff the p4 has, when it comes down to real time performance.. the differences are only marginal. Sure, the AMD heats up a lot (some times a real lot), but I still think you are getting your moneys worth when buying an AMD. The other thing is that AMD is not the best choice for an overclockers (in comparison to the p4)... but not all of us are overclockers are we?
By the way.. for anyone intrested in a benchmark comparison, have you tried this place:
http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q1/020107/index.html
In the end, I personally would choose Athlon any day. Basically because I know I'm not wasting any of my hard hard earned money... and I'm getting almost the same performance anyway.. at the expense of getting some extra heat. So what.. even if i get the most expensive cooler, I would still be saving at least $50...
More... The new Athlon XP's have Anti burning protection that helps lengthen the life of the CPU by shutting down the system if it reaches a user defined temp. If you get a good Motherboard that supports this, then you have little to worry about. I have an ASUS A7V-333 with Athlon XP 1800, and it runs like a charm.
For the moment, I think AMD would be the best choice for most people.