You will pay quite a bit more for a P4 system overall and if you insist on Intel then go Northwood (these are the new 512 L2 cache models with improved performance, available as 2.2gig or higher)
But if gaming is what this is all about go AMD XP to save some money and go ballistic on a top end graphics card
(the geforce 4600Ti is the king at the moment but the new Radeon 9000 is just about to be released that is rumoured to beat the GF?
If Intel P4 you want a 533fsb motherboard with DDR ram based on the new 845E or G chipsets.
If AMD XP you want a via KT333 chipset motherboard also with DDRam.
As for make of the motherboard: Asus, Abit, MSI, Gigabyte, Soltek, FIC, all good, Raid maybe an advantage longterm but USB2, Firewire, Lan and 6 channel audio are desireable features that you should be looking for. Martin Please let members know if there advice has helped any.