at the one grand level, go AMD. You should get a 17" Digital monitor, 256M PC133SDRAM, 30Gig HD, CDRW, DVD, GeForce2 32M Video, and the other accessories.
at the 1500.00 level go Intel. Your should get a 1.3G P4, 128M RDRAM, 40 Gig HD, CDRW, DVD, Geforce2 32M Video and the other stuff.
If you want a screamer get what I have. 1.7Ghz P4, 512M RDRAM,Adaptec 29160 Controller (160mbps throughput) 18G SCSI Cheetah160 X15 15K RPM HD, 64M DDR Prophet II GTS DVI, HP SCSI 12X10X32 CDRW, 16X Hitachi DVD, Intel 6.1 Stereo Interface, Amadeus 5.1 Sound System, Intel 10/100 NIC, 80Gig 5400 RPM Maxtor EIDE ATA100 HD, ZIP250 SCSI, Viewsonic G90f Perfect Flat 19" Monitor, W2K Pro. You should expect to spend. I went Intel because MS writes its software to Intel chipsets and AMD makes theirs compatible. But don't shy away from AMD. Their thunderbird 1.3 Ghz 266 series cpu on an ASUS premium board really smokes with PC150 SDRAM and the same components I have. have fun.....