ive used amd's a large portion of my gaming life, along with a powerful graphics card tbe high end ones fare wonderfully, sure you might not get aa good a score on synthetic tests or encoding but if you just want a cheap usable rig theyre fine.
i use intel i7/xeons now, but people baaically having an "eww amd" attitude are nothinf but snobs. most of them wont have a solid defense for their attitude beyond "intels are better/faster" too.