amd 3200+ 2.0ghz vs pentium 4 ht 3.2ghz?

Question

we are upgrading our main p.c from a pentium 4 to a intel core duo 2.6ghz,1gb ram,300gb hdd,radeon x1950xt pci-e(512mb) so i am using the pentium 4 which its replacing as my second computer
currently the second p.c is a amd athlon 3200+,1gb ram,2 x 80gb hdd,geforce 6600gt,,and the pentium 4 specs are pentium 4 ht (3.2ghz),1gb ddr ram,120gb hdd,radeon 9200 a.g.p
my question is ...is the pentium 4 better than the athlon,bare in mind i will replace the old radeon 9220 with the nvidia 6600gt and up the memory to 1.5gb ddr ram,and also throw one of the 80gb hard drives to add to the 120gb hdd,so with all that added will this be a better all round p.c than the athlon as it was before
i shall be using it for gaming,internet and general p.c duties(photo editing,dvd veiwing ect)
also could i use the athlon as a gateway p.c for security,to act as a first line of defence before it reaches the pentium 4
cheers guys!

Answer 1

The difference in performance between the Athalon 3200 and the P4 3.2 will be pretty minimal. The P4 will outperform the Athalon in most circumstances, but only by a small amount (photoshop and things like that will go faster on the P4, certain games might run a hair better on the AMD). In terms of gaming performance, the change in video card will make 1000% more of a difference than the change in CPU will. Also, combining the RAM so you have a P4 with 2 GB RAM and the 6600GT will be a pretty decent machine.

As for a gateway server, you certainly can do it. You would want to install a server OS on it then - I recommend Ubuntu for servers. Installing any form of windows on it will make it completely transparent to viruses (and therefore useless). Quite frankly a decent router will do just as good a job, though.