ill explain it to you like it was explained to me by i think nitestick or gaara or Green Radience one of them
Lets say intel and AMD made highways
Intels highway has 8 lanes with potholes in them, whereas AMD has 4 Lanes and are the cleanest most beautiful highways you have ever seen. Hence AMD gets more across whereas Intel doesnt.
As for the FX-60 yes it is Dual Core, it is not the best, as stated before the Opteron 180 or 185 is better because it can take more than an FX-60. if u can blow about 1k on a CPU i think everyone here would suggest the Opteron 185, AND on top of that when you learn how to Overclock you can get the Opteron REALLY HIGH! they overclock like MAD!
As for the motherboard if u want a powerful PC i'd suggest getting an Aftermarket Heatsink/Fan, i think the Thermaltake Big Typhoon is great.
You'd also need a case with Good airflow ( i suggest the Thermaltake Silver Kandalf, or the CoolerMaster Stacker), and many fans, i think 4 would suffice, 2 exhaust and 2 intake, but you can add more as well. You would also need Thermal Paste ( Arctic Silver 5) for the Cpu, that would make it cooler as well.
I dont know any good Motherboards for Multimedia centers, cause i've just been reading up on General and Gaming computers, but im sure someone else can help you in that department
IF your gonna use WIndows MCE i'd suggest getting more than 2gigs of ram seing as how MCE can actually use more than XP ( XPs limit is 3gigs, more than that it wont use and it will slow it down).
Getting A raptor, like this one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136011
for Sytem programs, and also like a 500GB Western Digital Caviar for your Storage would be great.
2 Optical drives, i'd suggest the NEC 3550A, its a great one, but if u want to go with an expensive one, i think the Plextor SATA optical drives are good. im guessing they are much faster, but im not sure of the quality seeing as how plextor is the only maker and other companies havent started using it yet, ask around for that.
Im guessing you would want a big monitor.....So i'd suggest, like 003 ( a member) an LG L2000C, its 20.1 ", is that OK? if not and u want something like 30" then i guess you'd have to pik something like a TV that you can connect to your computer, instead getting a HUGE Monitor that would cost $2k instead.
Im guessing you'd want a Wireless Keyboard, look into Gyration they have some nice models. and as for Wireless mouse DEFINITELY the Logitech MX1000, its GREAT! my uncle has it and i've used it, its amazing.
Hope that answers some of your questions.
ADD: I think this is the longest post i've made without like adding pictures or something dumb.
