PC hunting

I'm buying a PC for my home. But I still can't decide whether to buy an AMD or an Intel-based processor. I've been PC hunting on-line--canvassing which brand is cheaper and better. AMD is way cheaper than Intel but I've been hearing feedbacks that it heats up quite fast. And since I would be using my pc to work at home pretty soon, I think I'd better settle for something that has better specs, right? I need a pc that has at least 2.0 ghz processor (Pentium 4), 40gb hard drive and 512mb RAM. But the problem is, I am not very particular with computer hardware so I'm a bit scared to buy by myself. I guess I just have to go window shopping with my techie friend one of these days...