A lot of people are saying the A4000 is better, but remember Elbox released a very cheap PCI busboard for A1200's about a month ago..
http://www.elbox.com/products/mediator_pci_1200_lt.htmlOnly 138 EURO .. then you can put a pretty kick ass graphics card in, and a cheap 16bit sound card.
Though, the A4000's have less hacks, and they have a faster PowerPC solution, if you wanted to go down that road.
