Look dually opteron, or wait and see if the Athlon FX chips can be run in SMP on an opteron board before making a decision. I stand by the Athlon XP platform over the Intel one just from my experiences all-around, but you want to know all of your options before shelling on an immediately outdated box.
Can you wait until the end of the month? If you can, you'll then have a good picture of the playing field. If you can get a dually AMD64 platform up you will probably be using it for many years to come and it will be on a platform that is maintainable into the usable future (unlike socket A which is getting canned and the intel selections which change every six months or faster).
I'd grab a 9800 Pro, slap a full size heatsink on it, clock it to the moon, and be done with it. Or, watercool it and your CPU if you have the urge.
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