I would have to greatly disagree. Particularly in the budget area. All of my PCs are AMD processors except for the one I just put together. The reason: I wanted the latest/greatest/fastest/gamer friendly/overclocker friendly that money didn't care about... much. The Intel processor I got, the E6600 (2 2.4GHz on a single chip) processor, barely beat out the AMDs I was looking at... barely. The system this one replaced was an AMD 1800+ that I used to play Half-Life 2 with decent frame rates, et al.
Now, how does all this speed and power relate to your business needs? If my AMD 1800+ (1.3 GHZ) processor could still handle the latest games, it would certainly handle any business application you'll throw at it. Therefore, this Dell PC with its Athlon 3200+ (2.2GHz) processor will also handle anything you give it.
I've been very pleased with AMD processors and they are perfect for just about anything. I believe you will be, too.
The system comes with 512MB RAM. This is sufficient. If your business involves a lot of graphics editing, I would make sure to bump the memory up to 1024MB. Your employees will love you after the 19" monitors show up. The only problem I see with the PC is that it comes with Windows XP Home or Windows Vista Home. Neither are business oriented and should not be used in companies with over 10 employees or that have a somewhat complex network. I cannot recommend Windows Vista, not yet... maybe not ever. Perhaps, Linux will finally take hold of the Operating System market. It is ready, but I digress. Get WinXP Home if you are going to stay away from WinXP Pro.
(Dell offers WinXP Pro for $99 when you go through their configurator. Rather pricey for this setup. However, they do offer 1GB RAM for $60, a good deal, not great... good.)
Back to your original question: Why is the Dell AMD processor chip so cheap? I'm not sure, Dell will probably try and upsell anything and everything. ... Yah, they try to upsell everything. Don't fall for it. Best Buy sells most of it cheaper.
Anyway, BE AWARE, it does NOT come with any productivity software (MS Office). However, go to
http://www.openoffice.org and get the excellent (and free) productivity software. The only thing OpenOffice.org software lacks is they same high quality Excel program. It has a VERY GOOD spreadsheet (called Calc), and it will do most of what Excel does, however, Excel has certain advanced statistical features that Calc does not.
It also does not come with security software. However, AVG is free for personal use and cheap for business use... and worth it. I would also recommend ZoneLabs ZoneAlarm Security Suite. In my testing, it faired very well against the major players (McAfee and Nortons). It was a project for one of my software engineering classes (Summer 2006). Kaspersky also did a fine job as a total security suite package.
This type of advice is what I did to put myself through school, and I still do it as a side job. However, take this advice for what it is worth... advice. It's my opinion and may not necessarily meet your needs.
Missed another op to get some business comps...I'm too slow on the draw.