To Fursphere,

In applications that do not support Quad-Core architecture or performing operations using multicores, the Intel chips are superior in benchmarks due to their OUTDATED technology. Using older architecture to support older programs with faster clock speeds leads to greater compatibility. What AMD did was advance to the next level rather than trying to take baby steps up the stairs. The Phenom + Next-Gen games like Crysis is instant proof. Crysis was designed with a true Quad-Core in mind running with a high end graphics card, everything from weather, to landscape, AI, and physics runs smoother and more accurately because all the paths can be used actively and at the same time rather than using a Queue system to determine important in the Intel Processor intersection. While, even I was tempted to go the Intel Quad route permenantly, I noticed similiar performance using a 6000+ AMD in Current-Gen games (WoW, AoEIII, Far Cry) but I held out due to its lack of innovation in chipset design. In addition, you need to look at the whole picture of the AMD 7 Series Platform.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/0,,3715_15337,00.html

Motherboard, CPU integration and updates that don't need to occur at the same time, but when you finally do, the performance is night and day, while with Intel you are FORCED to get another motherboard that doesn't provide the same performance increase. I'll take my ability to string the 4 video cards together with each being able to use a processor on the quad-core independently over having to share time to do tasks.

Its not that I'm just an AMD fanboy, (I've owned pretty much a processor from EVERY release that occurs the past 10 years to include testing server processors) its just I'm tired of Intel not reaching for new innovation and I'd rather cheerlead for a company willing to taking computers to the next level.