It's astounding how much cheaper AMD's stuff is now. And you can get a 3.4 GHz quad core AMD CPU (Phenom II x4 965, 125W - $185 boxed) while Intel doesn't even offer one clocked that high. E.g. a Core i7 950 3.06 GHz 130W - $570. (The Intel box will benchmark higher, and may have lower power consumption in some situations, but you'll pay a lot more for the privilege (3-way RAM, etc.).)

I really wish someone would make a reasonably cheap dual- or quad-socket AMD Phenom II motherboard. $300 for a Tyan S4985G3NR is superficially reasonable, but the cheapest Socket F quad core Opteron chip is $260 each and it's only clocked at 2.0 GHz. Yeah, I know that's a server board and CPU. But AMD would do well to attack markets that Intel isn't concentrating on, and inexpensive super desktops would be one of those.

Maybe Bulldozer will make that approach moot, but mid-2011 is a long way off - http://www.anandtech...owdoc.aspx?i=3674

Cheers,
Scott.