i went from late PIVs to a Core2 quad and missed out on the stuff inbetween. Today I scored two computers, the first is a "lenovo" ThinkCentre with an early dual core in it running at 1.8 gig and it seems to run properly hardware wise. I could not be bothered fixing the XP installation so I just shoved a new copy into it and its a more or less running computer. I had to find the drivers for it but it was no big deal to download them from lenovo.
I have not played with the second box yet, it looks like a Prescott PIV and its on a Gigabyte board so it may run OK as well. The trouble is I aready have enough legacy computers so I will probably end up giving the 2 boxes away.
I just found a temporary use for one of them, I shoved a default installation of WinXP SP3 into it and it is useful for testing things that work fine on my dev box but not on standard Windows installations. Added a pair of $5 speakers to it, those horrible shitty little squarkers (bought them at a garage sale this morning) and it has half passable sound if you are not all that fussy.
Have not touched the PIV yet, I had such a lousy run with them about a year ago that I am in no hurry to do it again, at least it has a Gigabyte board in it instead of an OEM Intel board made for IBM. Maybe I can load it full of some of my old PIV junk to get rid of some of it. :P
i've been pretty happy with this intel board, overall
it has its drawbacks, but it performs well enough for my needs
it is problematic if i wanted to upgrade the OS, but as i have no intention of doing so, i am ok :P