Howyadoin,
I've tried both with my Delta 1010...
1st system:
AthlonXP 1800+, o/c to 2000+
nVidia nForce chipset
Win2K w/SP2
SoundForge 6.0
Had problems with popping and clicking, and the system ran hot as a bastard when tracking saturated the CPU. Had to resort to watercooling to get rid of the fans I was relying on before.
2nd system:
Intel P4 2.4 @533FSB, o/c to 3.0
Intel 845PE chipset
WinXP w/SP1
Cubase SX
So far (running 1 week), flawless... no pop/clicking, no temperature issues with stock heatsink/fan, might even try a Zalman Flower mongo-passive heatsink to reduce noise.
Granted that there are a lot of X-factors here; chipset, OS, software, etc.
The most common question on this board is "What works?". I've found an Intel setup that works beautifully with my Delta 1010. That's what matters at the end of the day. I've been using AMD since the K6-2 days, and there's no question that AMD has been kicking Intel's ass on price/performance since the Athlon came out. AthlonXPs do generally outperform P4s in the common benchmarks like Winstone and 3DMark.
As anyone can see from reading this board, there are people with relatively underpowered systems that are having no problems, and people with uber-boxen that are frustrated as hell. DAW performance is not as critical as stability and a properly configured software environment, particularly the OS and sound card drivers.
-Mark P.