AMD is done competing in the high end market (at least for the moment), so we are not expecting much from them outside of mobile and midrange products. The only possible exception to this line of thinking is that both next gen consoles are running 8 core (4 module, 8 thread) AMD x86 processors. This means that there could be a possible benefit of owning an 8 core AMD chip for next gen console ports which will be poping up in the next year or so. Not sure how much benefit, or if it will be significantly more powerful than an Intel quad core for gaming... but it is a possibility. Still, even an i3 processor can play high end games these days when paired with a decent GPU... so I imagine that i5 processors will continue to dominate the market in the near future.
The next line of Intel chips (Broadwell) is aimed at increasing onboard GPU capabilities, and lowering TDP for mobile devices. So while they will offer a little more performance, we are not expecting a whole lot of added benefit form the next gen chips. Also, Broadwell is not coming out until this fall at the earliest, so it is going to be some time before it is even available. Another annoying/distrubing trend is that each generation of Intel chips overclock less easily. Those of us with 3 year old Sandy Bridge CPUs can still keep up with the newest Intel chips simply because we can typically OC higher to make up the difference. So even if Broadwell was going to be a significant improvement... liklihood is that it still wont OC well, and that most of the mainstream chips put out the last few years will keep up just fine.
Rumor has it that the next big thing for enthusiests will be the Skylake or Cannonlake processors. These will bump up the connectivity standards to allow for things like PCIe4, SATA4/express, DDR4, and other new standards so that even if the CPUs are not significantly more powerful... there will still be cases to be made for upgrading. But beyond the new standards, it sounds like they will make quad core CPUs standard, which means that we might finally see mainstream 6-8 core processors for i5 and i7 chips which will hopefully be able to be put to good use by then. Intel will also be nearing the end of their ability to shrink the die, which means that we may see more focus on clock efficiency which would be more beneficial to the desktop market rather than all of the mobile tech they have been investing in lately. Sadly, these chips will not be coming until 2016 at the earliest, and possibly as late as 2018, so there is plenty of time to buy a rig now, and then upgrade again when Intel starts caring about desktop users again.
Hope that helps!
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