I prefer Intel processors because when I bought mine, they were more powerful than any other AMD processor. As for graphics cards, I wanted to try my first Nvidia one to see how the experience compared to ATI, but I have a feeling I'll be picking up an ATI card again. Nvidia aren't offering the price / performance ratio that they should be, and no card fits into my budget range.

The console companies had no influence at all on my PC purchase as I judge everything purely on performance.

Have pretty much always used Nvidia cards as I consider them to have better driver support and hence on average better performance when it comes to their top of the line cards.

So far I have owned- Geforce 2 MX200, Geforce 4200Ti, Geforce 7600gt, Geforce 8800gt SLI, GTX-680.

I do like competition though so in a way I am happy to pay for their hardware in the consoles.

Ive been a AMD/ATI (guess now AMD/AMD) guy for a very long time, until the i5s, when I went Intel/Nvidia.

My i5 + 470 sli has been fantastic and will keep me sticking with Intel/Nvidia when I upgrade in the fall.