that would be the best choice, CRT + Dual core. CRTs still guaranty that you'll get more image quality for your money, if you'd combine that with a good pc, you'd have everything you need to do basic to more advanced stuff.

You, have your point. It is true, I would not go for AMD in your case...Providing you dont get a quality after sale support...But, I would like to remind you that this amd processor, Gosh, they really withstand the hard work,,in my side...I guess it is not the same for everyone..Cheers..

Yes, definitely if i were in western europe or the states, AMD would be my processor of choice, except for a couple stations maybe where the Intel dualcore whips AMD in video rendering.

I'd recommend AMD athlon 64 3000+ or above. Will be much faster than the processors you've mentioned, and at almost half the price. Purchase it from an authentic shop if you fear it might blow up My last AMD processor lasted 5 yrs (and still running) My current one is 2 yrs old and going great. BTW, i'm a hardcore comp user

It's not authentic shop purchases i'm worried about. I would go for MAD, except as i said above, the after-service sucks. AMD has a market penetration here of about 10%, and Intel has 90%.
Even with that huge share, it took them 2 months to replace my warrantied Intel 845 motherboard. Now if i get AMD and they go bad, am i supposed to wait 6 months before they replace it?
That's sort of the problem here.