The 9800Xt easily outperforms the 5950 in every way. It'll be intersting when the new ATI and NVidia cards come out. They're getting pretty close!!

But between AMD and INtel. AMD even though they have 64 bit still dont outperform pentium 4's. Even though pentium 4's are only 32 bit (who CARES) they are a HELL of a lot faster. BUT a HELL of a lot more expensive. BUT if you make the most of them (overlocking for example). They are without a doubt worth their money.

i dont want to turn this post into a flame war or anything of the sort, but that statement about the p4's outperforming the AMD 64's is false. in many benchmarks out there the AMD 64 out performs the P4 3.2 w/ HT as soul harvester has said before. do a search for the benchmarks, you'll see. and as for overclocking the two,i wouldnt say one is better than the other, they both have their highs and lows.

Noone can answer your question until you give us more details on what else you want to do with your computer (video editing maybe?) and how much money you want to spend.

Well I've tried two systems with exactly the same specs but different cpu's. A pentium4 3.2ghz 800mhz northwood chip and an athlon64 3200+. Guess which one performed better? The pentium4. Oh yeh and this was tested using several top of the range games like Halo, bf1942, Morrowind, unreal tournament 2003, vietcong, vice city + generals. All of these games were on max details + resoltuion on 1600 x 1200. But Snowman you're right. You can't really define the best out of the two but the P4 outperformed the AMD in these games and probably most others would also apply. I would predict that AMD's are better at video editing. I dunno you give me facts



PS: AMD's are great value for money! EXCEPT the best athlons. One is £350!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But my point is that Pentium 4's are too expensive.

Best Gaming system

:hotouch:
here are the specs for a badass computer:
Where the sky is the limit that is: stay away from AMD, most motherboard companies have terrible mobo versions.

Mobo:go for one with this CHIPSET: Intel 925XE Express chipset
Video Card: get yourself either the ATI 9800XT, or X850pro. If not then go for Nvdias 6800 ultra (this is my favorite of the badboys).
Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor Extreme Edition HT
Memory: stay off the kingstons go for Crucial (1 GB) PC4000 (ballastix)
for case and power supply: Stay with thermaltake, and use their EXtreme Giant III for cooling the Video card.
Sound cards: I stick to creative labs. (just get the best one there)
HD: stick with seagate, or western digital, also get a 10,000 rpm HD, and get a spare one for pagefiling.

Make sure you buy an aluminum case, and make sure its a full tower ATX.
:darth:

overlooking hard drives, gentlemen. all the talk is cpu, but a fast processor will only get you so far. some lightning fast 15k RPM maxtor atlas scsi hdd's with an u320 interface would make a system truly fast, especially for working with audio, video, and in server applictions.

as far as cpus go, the AMD athlon fx-55 "clawhammer" is the best out there right now. it hurts me to say it, but i gotta give amd some credit. it tops the P4 in the CPU benchmarks at toms hardware.