The new processors on the market are the Pentium 4 and the Athlon Xp. The Pentium 4 comes in speeds of 1.3 to 2.2 gigahertz. The Athlon Xp is available in speed of 1.33 to 1.67 gigahetz. The consumer that would buy a computer without doing any research, would purchase the Pentium 4 do to it?s higher clock speed. It is easy to assume that the Pentium 4 would be a much faster processor that the Athlon due to it?s faster clock speeds. In reality, the Athlon is just as fast as the Pentium 4 in everyday applications and tasks. Some of the benchmarks even show that the Athlon is faster in a few situations.
			Thus, Amd has named the models of the Xp processor accordingly. For example, the Athlon Xp 2000 runs at 1.67 gigahertz, but can compete with 2 gigahertz systems speed wise. Will this be the way that processors will be named these days? The answer is no. The Pentium 4 models are named in the old manner. For example, the 2.2 Gigahertz Pentium 4 actually runs at 2.2 gigahertz. Now the truth is that the Pentium 4 is the better processor because it has a 400 megahertz front side bus compared to the Athlon?s 266 megahertz. The Pentium 4 architecture is expected to be able to reach clock speeds of 5 gigahertz in the next few years. But, don?t think that if you buy a Pentium 4 motherboard that you will be running at that speed a few years from now. Your chipset and socket simply won?t support it. Same thing with the Athlon. It is expected to top out around 2 gigahertz. The difference here is the principle of getting the most bang for the buck. The Athlon Xp 2000(the fastest Athlon)runs around $260 for oem. The Pentium 4 2.2 gigahertz is $500. For that $500 you can buy a motherboard, ram, and the processor.
				This is nice that processors are getting so fast. But keep in mind that software is not really designed yet to take full adavantage of all that speed. Finally, the new Athlon, code named Thourhbred, is coming out in June. The Pentium 4 will be redesigned and will hit 3 gigahertz at the end of the year. These processors will be running 64-bit code which, when used with 64-bit encoded software-such as Windows Xp-the performance is mind blowing. So for now, the Athlon and Pentium are equal in performance, but the Athlon is by far the better buy for those on a budget.
				-Justin-		OEM vs. Retail