Nutterbutter,
It may be worthwhile to hold onto that P4 for just a little while longer
Questions:
Are you planning on going single or duallie?
NForce 3? VIA K8T800?
Plan on overclocking (avoid the Via chipset for now) or no?
What OS are you planning on running on it? I don't keep up with the Windows world, but I believe that Windows XP will not have 64 support until next year. Red Hat has a 64-bit OS, but I think that is only in their Enterprise (i.e., not free) versions. I haven't followed SuSE, Debian, or Gentoo on this.
It might be prudent to have a 64-bit OS and 64-bit applications in hand before making the jump to a 64-bit chip - the chip will be faster, cheaper, cooler and quieter by that time, anyway. Sure, you can run it 32-bit - but you can do that on your current Pentium4.
You might at least consider waiting 'till early next year when the AMD 64s are scheduled to ramp up to the .09 process - should run faster, cooler, quieter, and have more overclocking headroom.
A few AMD 64 FAQs/reviews:
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s=&t...&threadid=37128http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1883&p=1http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1901http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1917&p=2http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1483http://www.amdzone.com/http://forums.2cpu.com/Let us know -
Epaminondas