High end AMD vs low end INTEL (mainstream)

Similar maybe, but the Core 2 Duo would be a bit more energy efficient.

The Core 2 Duo T5420 is @ 1.66 Ghz
The Turion64 x2 TL-60 is @ 2.00 Ghz

Similar Performance
Intel would be Cooler / Energy Efficient / Longer Battery life

So it's your choice, They both performance wise are almost the similar.

i would piss on a turion64 if it was on fire.(when in comparrison with the C2D)

a turion is really a modded A64X2 and considering the turion has a 012% increased clock speed but is at leats 025% slower when clock are alike (go figure)

I'd take a Doo-Doo on a Pentium (For thermal paste/ And in comparison to Core and K8)

This is not quite perfect, but as a rule of thumb, The Core2 based designs run, clock for clock, about 25% faster than the x2 based AMD designs.

1.66 x 1.25 => 2.075 versus 2.0, s over all , pretty close.

The AMD chip is cheaper, so IF you can turn the savings into more Ram, better HD, better video, etc the AMD may be a better deal, but raw cpu speed is pretty close.