Hmm lets do the math....
USA rough, pricewatch estimates:
P4 1.5Gig chip = 525
256 Rdram = 425
Motherboard = 190
total is around 1100 dollars
1.3 Athlon-C (266fsb) = 250
256 DDR = 130
(or) 256 Sdram = 110 (50 dollars if you choose the gamble-quality, generic stuff)
Motherboard = about 140
total is around 550
Then you have to add your extras....but there would be no difference in price for those.
I just put together an 1.2 Athlon C
MSI K7T-Turbo R (has built in sound)
256megs of Corsair Case 2, Sdram,
2 7200 IBM ultra 100, 30gigs Harddrives (running on Raid 0)
Antex SX1030b, Case
Alpha Pal 6035 heatsink
Geforce 2 PRO 64meg
for roughly 1400 dollars. If I had gotten the P4 it would probably have been in the 2000 dollar range.
Already had a Sb live card, monitor, CDRW, and a 3-1/4 floppy drive.
Had to do a little bragging
...my other computer is a 200mmx.
The P4 is like one of those "Lamborghini" cars.
The Athlon is like buying an old beat up car, slapping on a 800HP engine (can you say, HEMI?), and modifying the chassie.
(Same results...just less flash, and a whole lot of less money)
Besides, the P4 is having a lot of Hardware Compatiblility problems, a lot more than the Athlon VIA Chipset motherboards. (VIA seems to be ironing out their problems. I don't know what's going on the P4 side of things. I quit my PC research after I built this here, computer.)