Heyyo,
[EDIT]
Ok, he fixed the links, so I removed me saying they weren't working and so this post is mainly just rambling.
Now, the diff in the L2 cache is that that's your secondary cache, I think it's used to load your hardware. Now, the more L2 cache, the better your system preformance. The diff isin't actually that big. for the amd semptrons and athalonXP's. I'm quite surprised by that. But the price gap's the best part. the Intel celerons, on the other hand, seriously suck. some people call them celery cause they're not good for much.
My cpu rating goes like this:
AMD FX series
AMD Athlon64
Intel P4
AMD AthlonXP
AMD Semtron
Intel Celeron
Now, for some people, they might have a diff order. Some are intel fans, some are amd. I like to base my findings on price/preformance ratio. But sometimes I just go by brue preformance, otherwise the AMD fx series of processors wouldn't be ontop.
Well, I hope I helped somewhat...
Oh, but for Hl2 mapping n' such? I bet an Intel P4 would go a few seconds faster than an AMD. But if a few seconds ain't life or death, and you wanna save some cash? I'd go AMD. Intel's tend to do better in applications such as encoding mp3's or movies or running your word processing program. Probably goes the same for map compling.. but then again, that does touch on the 3d side of computing, which AMD is king. AMD's are the best cpu's for gaming, so maybe for compiling levels, AMD's would to better than Intel. In the end, as I've said, the difference between AMD and Intel for mapping and compiling would only be a few seconds at the most, so it's up to you which you wanna crank out the cash for.