A really great article about the performance of the Pentium 4 vs (mainly) Athlons by Darek Mihocka. Darek really knows the ins and outs of the various processors and the article has lots of great insights. Recommended. His summary:

So it's deja vu all over again for Intel. Here we are in November 2001. Almost one full year since Intel launched the disaster known as Pentium 4. A year ago it was the Pentium 4 vs. the Athlon on Windows Millennium and Windows 2000. This year it's the Pentium 4 vs. the Athlon XP on Windows XP. In both cases, the same result: AMD produces a faster less expensive processor. And taking into account the year 1999, when the Athlon debuted and dethroned the Pentium III as fastest processor, this now marks the third Christmas buying season in a row that Athlon based PCs offer better value than Intel based machines. If someone were to buy me a computer this Christmas and it didn't have a AMD Athlon XP processor inside of it, I think I would throw it right back at the idiot who wasted his money on it.

How many times does he say CLOCK SPEED IS NOT EVERYTHING!?