Need Help

in this current generation of CPU's

I'd believe youd' get better performance out of the ATHLON 3500+. what exactly though is your intended use of the computer?

currently the ATHLONS are better "bang for the buck" with their fast onchip memory controller, low Thermal disapation, and higher FSB (hyper transport).

the AMD's memory controller is really fast and is able to perform very well with DDR400 ram and still keep neck to neck with the DDR2 memory intel uses.

the thermal disapation is far lower. Intel's CPU's average heat loss is supposed to be around 115w to 135w while the AMD's maximum is around 115w. both CPU's come with adequate boxed coolers though.

and AMD CPU's now use what they call "Hyper Transport Tunnel" or HTT. this is there version of the "front side bus" and it runs at 1,000mhz aposed to intel's 800mhz. This allowing for more bandwith to the CPU.

all combined, as i said the AMD Athlon would probably provide for greater performance now.

but this only applies to the CURRENT GENERATION CPU's. in the future generation, intel has a few promising tehcnologies that "COULD" be better than AMD's. although AMD will be releasing a few of their own

but the low down is both CPU's are good CPU's and will perform whatever tasks you give them