Lo guys. Ive finally become fed up with having a huge lumbering loud full sized pc and have decided to sell up and move to a small, sexy quiet sff system. As I want this system to last me quite some time (poor student and all), Ive decided to go for a currently top end setup. At the moment Im torn between two ideas for a system (prices from ebuyer):

1) AM2 system:

Shuttle XPC SN27P2 AM2:             Ã,£310.58
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+:             Ã,£129.14
Twin Ebuyer 2GB DDR2 800MHz:   Ã,£149.98
Western Digital 250GB SATA2:      Ã,£47.85
                                      Total:    Ã,£637.55

2) Core 2 Duo system

Shuttle XPC SD37P2 LGA775:        Ã,£306.63
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300:               Ã,£120.87
Twin Ebuyer 2GB DDR2 800MHz:   Ã,£149.98
Western Digital 250GB SATA2:      Ã,£47.85
                                      Total:    Ã,£625.33

Never mind about gfx as I have an PCI-X card that will do for now.
Firstly, which type of system should I go for? The AM2 shuttle has ddr800 support, whereas the core 2 beats the A64. Also, can anyone suggest any alternatives to the parts Ive listed (possibly ignoring the ram, its all ebuyer have atm and im still researching)?

Any other comments also welome

Nice. I have gone the Core 2 Dup route (having been an AMD fanboy till recently) and am building mine at the moment.

I believe that Samsung Spinpoint drives are amongst the quietest but I use maxtor Sata2 myself, the 16mb cache ones. I would perhaps buy Seagate drives next due to the 5 year warranty they offer.

But Core 2 is the way to go.

Cheers
Tongy

Just built the rig in my signature...

My x2 is very nice and is serving me very well

I really still dont fancy Intel over AMD (also a AMD fanboy) but at the same time I own a P4 and the P4 is pritty good and is still worthy of doing a lot of stuff

Also a Shuttle Fan Boy as well im extremelly happy with the new shuttles

The core 2s are brilliant.

I just put a 6700 in my HTPC and one in my desktop and they are absolutely fantastic.

ive been pricing up midrange rigs lately.  In the midrange the AMDs seem to be a better deal TBH.  The Intels in that area dont give enough extra performance to be worth extra money.  Yes they can be overclocked really easily, but if you dont want to overclock then there seems little point.

Im waiting anyway, I doubt very much that AMD have been sat on their hands, and if the new 4x4 rigs they are putting up against the Intel Quads are anything to go by then performance should be about even between the two.  

Ive used AMD due to price preference for years, though at the moment im using either a 3.0 Ghz P4 or 3.2Ghz P4.  the 3.2 is just a standby rig until Ive got the cash put to one side to replace.