Most reviews are accurate, you've just got to read between the lines as they don't tell you the reasoning behind the results, which are therefore open to interpretation are are often misleading.
As regards P4 vs Athlon, the P4 is faster currently just because Intel play a large part in providing compiler optimisations for their CPUs, so all recent software is optimised for the P4.
The P4 is actually inferior to the Athlon and this is seen when running older software that hasn't been optimised for the P4. The specific optimisations are for SSE2 instruction set, which Intel have not yet licenced to AMD (I think, though maybe AMD aren't prepared to implement the changes to their CPUs at this time - the Athlon64 does have SSE2 support and its own specific compiler optimisation, and is looking really fast right now), leaving AMD at a disadvantage when running newer software.
As to price difference between equivalent P4 and Athlon systems, I can't really comment on the prices sourced in the US, but over here in the UK the equivalent P4 3.06 and Athlon 3000+ CPUs would be separated by about £200 ($300), which is quite a bit of money.
Also, the Athlon XP 1700+ JIUHB core CPU can reach 3200+ speeds when over clocked, and can be bought for a mere £50 ($75), while Intel have the highly overclockable P4 2.4 GHz 800 fsb which can overclock to 3.2 GHz also, but costs an additional £100 ($150) more than the Athlon 1700+.
P4 mainboards are LESS stable (though still very stable) than nForce2 mainboards and also tend to cost about £30 ($50) more for similar specs in the UK.
As you can see, a P4 system is likely to cost around £130 ($200) more for a low end system that you can overclock, and around £230 ($350) more at the higher end (
[email protected]/Athlon@3200+). Thats quite a bit of cash, but if it is much cheaper in the US, and you can get an equivalent P4 for only $112 more, then go for it. It will be slightly faster.
However, most of us here support AMD simply because without them we would all be paying significantly more for our PCs, and just now AMD are not doing too well, whereas Intel are doing very well, despite their underhanded tactics to destroy any competition they have. Intel sucks!