I think the benchmarks pretty much speak for themselves, but there is way more to it than that. The Pentium4 can deliver you one of the fastest gaming boxes on the planet. Then again, the expense of the CPU, the board, the Rambus, the new PSU might just outweigh the performance increases in those applications. Lump on top of that Intel is close to getting rid of Rambus and going with DDR and soon the CPU socket will change, further limiting your upgrades... You guys are tweakers and DIY kinda folks. It is not hard to see where I am going with this.
I still don't have a problem suggesting a Pentium4 to someone that will never open their computer case, but if you think that you will even be upgrading your Ram at some time in the future, the P4 is not the way to go from the expense of Rambus alone. On the other hand, the AMD CPUs hold their own (I know, I use one every day), are very upgrade friendly, and are getting notoriously inexpensive.
We speak to hundreds of computer users every week here at the [H] and I can count the ones that I am aware of building a Pentium4 system on one hand. The platform is simply not being accepted outside the OEM market. AMD is coming on strong in retail markets and I think Intel is becoming very aware of this, as this has surely triggered some of the recent price cuts we have heard about. Not seen yet at a retail level, though.
One thing that has surprised me is that we have not seen a lot of mainstream software that has been optimized for the P4. When we did our original article back in November of last year, this was one of the things we were hoping to see. The software industry would hopefully adapt around this new CPU architecture. I remember seeing "MMX Enhanced" stamped on everything under the Sun when the technology was new for a while, but we have yet to see ANYTHING at our local software dealer with an "SSE2 Enhanced" or similar sticker. I know project completion times may possibly run years for software, but still it surprises me to see no company pick it up and run with it. Considering that paired with the almost inability to purchase an OEM P4 CPU, and the P4 looks even bleaker.
Still, I look at the P4 and really appreciate some of its obvious talents. But unless you are doing something with it that the P4 is specifically suited to, I don't see laying down your hard earned green for one if you want to build or upgrade the box yourself.
even the people doing the reviews don't suggest that everyone go out and buy a P4. so why don't we just admit that both company's make damn good chips depending on your use and budget. just give up trying to persuade everyone that the P4 is so much better than the athlon or vice-versa. if you like Intel i am very happy for, If you like AMD same thing why dony we just let everyone use there own preference w/o trying to convince them that we know best.
is this reality... i thought it would more realistic.
Personally I look at price/performance. The Athlon has a far better price/performance ratio than the P4. The P4 has very sad performance for a faster Mhz. CPU. It should crush the Tbird 1.33 with a 377 MHZ difference in CPU speed. Remember when the P2 could beat the K6-2 hands down at the same speeds? Thats how the P4 SHOULD be. But, admit it, the Tbird is superior! 
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