AMD vs INTEL

Let me preface this post with two things:

1. When building a box for myself...I don't like to go cheap. 
2. I have a Dual P3 1Ghz box with 1GB of RAM that I originally built in 1998 that is still outperforming a lot of off-th-shelf new P4 computers being sold by many manufacturers.
   • It has an Adaptec 39160 Ultra 160 card and Drives
   • It started out as a P2 400Mhz machine and 256Mb
   • In 1998 I built this "scream machine" for about $800. Had I ordered it from HP, Gateway or Dell, it would've been a server...and it would have retailed for somewhere around $2,000 or more. 

So now, 11 years later and after a similar computer with an MSI piece of junk M-Board (that is supposed to run at 133Mhz FSB) I am realizing that a man can not live on Laptop alone...and that it is time to build a new box.

...and I know something else: AMD has lost it's edge in the "speed wars". Intel has AMD's asses in a sling. 

Except for one thing, and I'm not sure why this is so. 

The Motherboards and Features found on the AMD supported side, blow the Intel Hardware out of the water. Period.

It's not just a battle of the CPU's, but the stuff that the CPU's sit on, and need to work that makes the AMD platform so attractive. 

...more on this later, there is a soap-box around here I really want to hoist myself on.

-The Dickens