I keep seeing people throw the word "multitasking" around and I don't think some of you guys know what it means.
I have an XP2600 w/333 mhz fsb. It was half the cost of a comperable P4 and it benchmarked pretty **** close.
On any given day I have Photoshop, Outlook, Opera, Trillian, FlashMX or Swish, among countless other proggy's open at the same time. THAT IS MULTITASKING!!! The ability to perform 2 or more tasks at the same time.
I'd also like to point out that there are good systems and bad systems. You can have a rock solid AMD based rig and a crappy AMD based rig. The CPU is only part of it. Sure, an important part, but all it takes is a cheap mobo or a bad stick of Ram to ruin an otherwise good system.
Also keep in mind it could be the idiot that built the broken system. All too often someone will buy an e-machienes or have they're buddy build them a system. While this is fine and good, I've seen some pretty crappy builds in my day of both types of CPU's.
Just some food for thought.