Okay, I'm looking to buy a new PC in the near future, say in the next two months or so. I've looked at all kinds of models from just about every manufacturer, but I just can't decide on what I want. The problem is, according to what I've read, AMD won't have a PCI-Express chipset until December, while the Intel PCI-Express chipsets (925, 915) are out already. Meaning that I'm forced to choose between PCI-Express and a 64-bit processor - or wait another six months, which I'm really not wanting to do.

My budget is $1800 or below, and I don't want to build my own PC because I don't think I trust myself enough to do it without screwing something up. Alienware and HP have pretty nice PCI-Express offerings, and ABS has pretty good 64-bit systems. I've looked at Dell, but I was turned off by the negative reviews about their customer support that I saw on PC World's website.

So my question to you is: if it were you choosing, would you rather have a 64-bit system or one with PCI-Express?

As far as what I'll be using it for, I'll probably dual-boot it and run Slackware or Fedora alongside Windows. I'm a PHP programmer, so I'll be running Apache/MySQL in the background at all times. I have some iTunes (about 1GB) and I'm adding more all the time, so I'll need a decently big (and fast) hard drive. Finally, the real reason I want to upgrade is that I want to be able to play games on it. My current PC is crap (see specs below; purchased before I knew enough about computers to realize how bad it was), and I can't play much of anything on it, even with lots of optimizations and a beta copy of Service Pack 2.

My current specs:

HP Pavilion 8660C (4 yrs old)
ASUS Motherboard (I dunno what model) / Intel i810 chipset
Intel Pentium III (Coppermine) 533 Mhz
Intel Integrated Graphics (4MB) / NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 256MB PCI (no AGP slots)
20GB 7200 RPM Hard Disk
4x2x4 CD-RW Drive
16x DVD-ROM/40x CD Drive
USB 1.1
Weird Conexant Modem / Rockwell Riptide Sound Card Combo
Standard 10/100 Ethernet

well personally i woudl chose the AMD anyday of the week ... and wouldn't let the idea
of the pci-express stop me ..

oh and this :
all i got to say about this, is that you will read this stuff about every manufacturer, not
just dell ... i work for HP and you wouldn't be able to imagine the amount of people that
go nuts because tech support is in india, cause not one person can understand them,
at least thats what they tell me ... all these big companies out source their support to
india, because its really cheap ... so all i have to say is, if you were by chance looking
at a dell, then don't let that be the reason for not getting it, cause your going to run into
with whatever company you deal with ...
oh, and my personal thought on this is, just don't buy a branded computer, i would
just build your own, its cheaper, its better, you know every little aspect about the
machine, etc, etc ... i know you said you don't trust yourself doing it, but find someone
that can assist you, or buy all your parts from the same dealer, and ask them to
assemble it before they give it to you ...

when you buy a HP, Dell, Gateway, etc .. i will guaruntee you will not know the
motherboard (this is a must know as far as i'm concerned) and you won't know the hard
drive type, etc .. you will only know the things they can guaruntee you they can
provide such as video cards, sounds cards, etc ...

anyways i typed a little more than planned, but i think you get my drift have fun
shopping, and AMD all the way

Thanks! My only fear is that, two years down the road, I'll want to upgrade my video card or something and find that the only thing available is PCI-e cards. I've heard that the integrated audio is better on Intel PCI-e motherboards too, is that true?

EDIT: Also, what about the higher-end vendors like ABS and Alienware that give you a better idea of what you're buying? ABS's customer support reviews have been nothing short of glowing, and Alienware is probably top when it comes to quality if you don't want to pay over $2000. Would anyone with an ABS or Alienware PCI-e or 64-bit system like to venture their opinion?

Okay, I took half your advice and went with an ABS Awesome 4300.

Specs:

Aspire X-Dreamer II Case / 350-watt PS
Asus K8V-SE K8T800 Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor (1MB Cache, 1600 Mhz Bus)
512 MB Corsair XMS DDR-SDRAM PC-3200
80 GB SATA-150 Hard Drive (8MB Cache)
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB AGP
Plextor PX-712A DVD/CD Writer
Onboard Sound/Network (6.1 Channel, Gigabit)
Wireless KB/Mouse