I was wondering… which processor is considered best, along with any pros and cons…

Or maybe as an analogy, in a battle which would concur? I am thinking the Xeon, but don’t know much about their overall abilities (the Xeon is 64 bit and the D processor is 32 bit and that makes a big difference, right?)…

Dual Xeon’s at 3.9GHz EM64T 800 MHz FSB w/ 2MB Cache
vs.
Pentium D processor Extreme Edition 965 HT w/ DCT 3.73GHz 1066MHz FSB w/ L2 Cache

The short answer... the AMD Athlon 64 X2 (Dual Core).

The long answer...
The Athlon 64 has been ahead of the P4 series for almost 2 years, and the Xeon is based on the same core as the P4. All of these currently have the 64 bit extensions, but that isn't something you're going to be using until you switch to a 64-bit OS. I've used Windows XP Pro x64, and Windows Server 2003 x64, but they just aren't ready for prime time due to lack of 64-bit drivers. As of about 6 months ago, 64-bit support was a joke. I couldn't use my Audigy2 or my Canon printer, and there was never to be support from Canon for my printer.

The new Core architecture from Intel is more powerful than the Athlon, and way more powerful than the Pentium 4 / Xeon. It implements virtually none of the Pentium 4 NetBurst architecture, but rather evolves from the P6 (As in Pentium Pro, PII, PIII) and Pentium M architectures. Still, its a number of months away (late Q3 for Conroe, the desktop Core), so opt for the X2 series from AMD if your budget allows. If not, then the PentiumD is a reasonable alternative.

+EP+

Heh, thats funny I was wondering about the AMD Athlon, but was thinking that the Xeon seemed pretty interesting. Thanks for the "Intel" (haha that is soo funny!! j/k), EP that is all good to know! hehee