Well I ask mostly because I did some browsing and an AM2+/AM3 motherboard is a staggeringly LOW cost price vs a i7 motherboard, and the AM2+ chips out right now (Phenom II, etc) are only about 220ish- for top line vs the lowest i7 at nearly 300 dollars. Prices have fallen to the outrageously LOW level for AMD, so I am trying to decide if bang-for-buck wise it would be worth it, or just pop in the extra 200 and get i7.
Comparitively speaking if the AMD only performs at 2/3 what the i7 I want would, then it would hit me as "equal". Yes it wouldn't be the most smoking rig on the planet, but its a Huge leap forward from broken down Pent 4 with mixed parts.
On the converse, if Phenoms can only compete about "half as well" to i7, then of course it would be better to just push the extra into it.
How did that.. what was it called... spider architecture or whatever fold out? Having AMD chip, mobo, and GPU all working together designed to be together for better performance, did it even break a sweat, or did Intel just push it over?
Only reason I am thinking of breaking from my i7 plan is because my job is cutting hours, drastically, and the money I thought I had, I don't right now. A little relief from Taxes is on it's way, I get a full 100% rebate this year, but yeah, it's not a ton.
-- I also see that the "3" boards don't seem to support Dual GPU.... which .. is very upsetting.