Looking at an AMD and an Intel build...need help deciding please

If its for gaming then AMD will do just fine so crack on.

Anything else - use Intel.

basically at this point, it depends on your price range.

$600 is kinda the dividing line. $600 and up, go Sandy Bridge, under $600 go AMD

Might I suggest taking a look at the benchmarks on Anandtech - you can compare the performance of each of the processors side by side. I recently decided to go with an intel build after listening to some of the advice here and doing some of my own research, and the benchmarks speak for themselves.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2

Thanks Vladimir82 for the link very, very helpful indeed. One problem tho....when i compared the two cpu's it was about an even comparison...
RESULTS: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/147?vs=100

AMD won 16 of the 26 benchmarks. However....i did notice that at the end of the list where they compare actual games intel was the winner in fps... So still undecided at this point. I'd just like to know if my thinking is correct....If I go with the less expensive PII and used the money saved to get a higher end gpu, would that be the smarter way to go? my budget is "around" $1000, give or take $300 if it's worth it, dont get me wrong I still live by "a penny saved is a penny earned". I just want to make sure I'm making the smarter move....

Here is the link to the two builds i'm looking at atm:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...



And i just found this build too as an all-rounder: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...

I built a very respectible (at least in my opinion) computer recently for about $1000:

i5-2500k, hyper 212+
MSI HD 6950 2GB
XFX 650w PSU
8GB Corsair RAM
Lite-On DVD Burner
HAF 912 Case, 2x 200mm Megaflow fans (red LED)
Logitech gaming keyboard and mouse
ASUS P8P67 LE mobo

You would need to watercool and OC the heck out of a PII to compete with this, and then your budget goes out the window because a proper watercooling setup is not cheap.

^of the two the X58 build is better since it has a board with two PCI-E 16x slots (the AMD build only has one), comes with a 1TB Hard Drive, and you can overclock the i7 yourself. For an AMD build I don't see much point in getting anything more expensive than a 955BE. If you're looking at an X6 you'd be better off with a Sandy Bridge build, and the step up from that would be an X58 i7 build.

Of course, the LGA 1155 2600K Sandy Bridge CPU is superior to an LGA 1366 i7 in most respects. The only reason to go with LGA 1366 is for a multicard setup since the X58 boards offer 16x/16x, or even 16x/8x/8x while 1155 CPUs are limited to 8x/8x. Of course this changes a bit if you add an nForce 200 chip to a P67 board, which eliminates any cost savings vs an X58 board and would pretty much throw out your 1k budget  

I wouldnt bother with a x58 setup, its outdated the x8/x8 for crossfire almost runs the same if not equal to the x16/x16 setup. Theres a x16/x16 vs x4/x4 benchmark using 2 480 gtxs:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/25/gtx_480_sli_p...

x8/x8 loses *at most* 2% off x16/x16 with otherwise identical setups.

That means if you get 100FPS in x16/x16, you get 98 with x8/x8. Or if its 50 FPS in x16/x16, you get 49 in x8/x8. Really insignificant given X58 chips are more expensive and inferior to P/H67 chips