I would personally look into the AMD Athlon 64's. If you are an Intel guru then I don't want to change your mind but I think you will get better performance out of something like an AMD Athlon 64 3200, coupled with an ASUS "K8V SE Deluxe", which is about $391 total (for the cpu+mobo at newegg). If you are going to get the Athlon I would think about getting ram with lower latency timings. AMD processors seem to perform a little better with lower cas timings. Possibly this:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...146-290&depa=1 . I think an Athlon 64 will last you a little longer because you would then have the ability to do things like upgrade the the 64-bit version of windows. Well worth the extra cost I think. btw, you could pick up a nice heatsink/fan for 20 some dollars.