IMHO, if you want it to be fast, of good quality, but reasonably priced, then chose AMD CPU's. And use an AsRock motherboard, last one I used was their
K7S8XE it has won a price performance award, and I believe it can take proccessors up to and including 3.0G. Also it supports the latest 8xAGP graphics boards, and it costs £34.50 at
DabsLike Sandra sez there is no such thing as best, and if you buy the very latest CPU, you will pay a "geeks must have now premium"