What most people look at right away when they are going to purchase a new computer is the speed the computer runs at. Likewise, Apple has an entirely different line of computers based on the PowerPC chip. To add to the confusion, companies like Intel have multiple processor lines, including the Pentium II, the Pentium III, and their red-headed stepchild, the Celeron. When you are looking into an upgrade or a new computer, the kind of CPU in it is of paramount importance. It can tell you a lot about the upgrade track the computer will have, whether or not it will handle existing applications and applications that will come down the pipe in the future.
Computers keep coming down in prices, and CPUs keep getting faster.
Because AMD will be shipping their Athlon CPUs very shortly, which have simply destroyed the Pentium IIIs in just about every benchmark out there. Also of important note is that Apple announced their new G4 . If you are a game freak. The G4 systems will be high-end, multimedia workstations, and priced out of the normal home user's range, but if you are doing a lot of multimedia production, the G4 systems will likely be the fastest machines out there for you. You can dismiss the Cyrix -based computers immediately.