yes, because even AMD's Phenom x6 probably wont compare to the i7-930

Why would you buy that? <_<  Unless it's something like a low-power fileserver, there's absolutely no application in 2010 for a single-core CPU.

You should at least get the lowest dual-core Athlon.

Is there some specific reason other than cos its fastest?

I beg to differ, it's mostly apps that benefit from the eight threads provided by HTT in the i7s that the top Phenom II X4s lose out in, so the extra two cores in Thuban should make it competitive... I think.

I'm pretty sure I read an article comparing the Istanbul-based hexacore Opterons to the i7s, and it was a pretty close match. And given that the Phenom II X6 will perform comparably, it should be as well.

Funny to see this posted. Just this morning I was debating with myself between the i3-530 and the Athlon II X4 635. Until about 2006 I built pretty much AMD machines only, but since then I have been all Intel. The i3 has without a doubt a stronger presence on single core programs, but the X4 handily beats it on heavily multi-threaded situations. Considering that I was building a renderbox/LAN machine I considered both fairly important. In the end I went with the X4 because it was $5 cheaper and with the constant move to further multithreading in games I expect it to make up some of the difference there.

That said AMD is going to need a real miracle to make them competitive enough for most people to ditch the Intel brand. At this point the benefits of the AM3 chips are so minimal they barely exist. I'm glad to support them, and have all the world of hate for Intel, but looking at the various benchmarks AMD is barely holding a price/performance edge at all. Though I went with a Radeon 5770 over whatever Nvidia crapped out in a heartbeat, so AMD isn't doing bad across the board.

Cause there is a $40 price difference up to the cheapest Athlon X2 (yay for discounts). I already know exactly what this PC needs to be capable of, and it should be capable to do it. According to what I've read, the CPU is capable of playing 1080p signals with 5.1 surround sound. Even then, it won't really be doing 1080p with 5.1 surround until blu-ray drives drop in price enought to make it worth it. It'll probably only serve up 720p video from my camera for a few years, and by then I could grab a newer AM3 processor for $30-40 that is multicore and over 3GHz if I need it. The goal (besides playing certain content) is cheap and low power.

It goes without saying, but any conclusions based on the charts is still essentially dependent upon individual configuration and more importantly application, more specifically, which apps a given system is going to be running the majority of time.

If it's strictly for gaming, I think just about everyone agrees there is a rapidly diminishing rate of return performance wise once you start pricing CPUs above $200.

Only someone with too much money to waste would use a $1600 i7 based Xeon to play games for example. Yet that's what you'll often find in dedicated workstations along with $1,000+ workstation VGA cards. Waste of money relative to performance? Tell that to the professionals that make their living with Maya, 3DS Max, AutoCad, After Effects, Premiere, etc. where there is no such thing as too much processing speed.

Sure I'd love to have a Xeon W5590 based workstation with a Quadro FX3800 like they have in the animation lab for Maya (hell, make it an FX5800 while you're at it), but those are $3000+ systems. Instead, I have to settle for a "hobo" workstation build with an overclocked i7 920 and a FireGL V7700 for about $1300 including OS. Would I rather use the Q6600 or E8400 system with gamer VGA card instead for productivity apps at a little more than half the price? Hell no.

They both make great cost effective gaming systems though. Apples and oranges.

It depends whether or not they can execute as well on the CPU side as they have on the GPU side. Unfortunately they have to outperform Intel to make any headway in the market. The real killer for them is the lack of an appropriate laptop CPU as performance/watt is an important metric in that field. Hopefully their low power Menlow core will execute well and actually give them the ability to compete for the mobile space.

They've survived the worst of it, and if the future is indeed fusion they ought to do quite well.

And not to mention, AMD has brand name and OEM support obstacles to overcome as well. A lot of people just simply don't even know that there's an alternative to Intel CPUs, and it'd do them a lot of good to get more of their CPUs into the mainstream Dell and HP boxes, and what have you. =\

To be fair you can get a Blu-Ray reader for $60 on NewEgg ATM. That is a drop in the bucket. Of course for people like me who don't do discs anymore even $60 isn't worth it.