lifespan of the athlon compared to P4?

"Iain" wrote in message
om...
I am getting a new gigabyte mobo (with the help of the good people in
this ng) and read last night while researching the subject that the
Barton core on the Athlon XP is likely to be the last revision and AMD
will be concentrating on their new 64bit chips. I'm thinking that
maybe buying an Socket A board is not the way to go as ideally like to
keep the mobo but get a new processor in a year or so, to keep up to
date.

If I bought a P4 (say a 2.4GHz) with the 800MHz FSB and an appropriate
board it would cost me a bit more but would that have a longer
lifespan? I believe the P4 has a lot more left in it so if I bought a
board that supports the 800Mhz FSB hopefully the next years worth of
P4's will be usable on that board? I don't want to buy into an AMD
solution that has no future, even though I'm an AMD-boy at heart.

Any thoughts on this subject greatly appreciated,
Iain
Unfortunately, I'd say it was impossible to be sure...
The problem is that though the P4'core', has further to go, in terms of
future expansion, than the current Athlon core, it is perfectly likely (it
has happened in the past), that a new 'format' will be needed with faster
cores, as the supply requirements change.
Intel have historically changed packages more often than AMD.
Realistically, you should accept, that in any timescale much beyond perhaps
eighteen months, the chances of being able to get a faster processor to fit
an older board are fairly limited.

Best Wishes