I've been an AMD guy for a long time. Also a former Prof. of Comp Sci.

Processors (CPU) are so fast nowadays that there are other liabilities that spring up - like RAM and the various buses not being fast enough to keep the CPU busy all the time. Also, hard drives are much slower than CPUs and buses. The Intel will have higher performance on paper and on benchmark programs, but in the real world, where things are not always as neat as a benchmark, the performance boost is largely lost. Intel may crunch numbers faster, but what good is that if it is waiting around for the rest of the system to catch up?

That's one main reason I use AMD. It is performance that actually gets used. You're not paying for extra "paper numbers" that will never actually happen in your studio.

But others will chime in here and have their own opinions. Try to build a consensus in your mind. Either way, AMD or Intel, a properly built system will make you happy.

I agree fully and that is the way I have looked at it for awhile when it comes to the components I place inside my computers. I pieced together the components I am thinking of buying for this build. This is what I have so far. I am open to changes or opinions:

[="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042"]Antec 300 case[/]="http://www.newegg.c…"]Antec 300 case[/]
[[url=http://="http://www.newegg.c…"]EVGA Video Card[/]="http://www.newegg.c…"]EVGA Video Card[/]
[="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131754"]ASUS Motherboard[/]="http://www.newegg.c…"]ASUS Motherboard[/]
[[url=http://="http://www.newegg.c…"]Corsair Power Supply[/]="http://www.newegg.c…"]Corsair Power Supply[/]
[="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808"]AMD Quad Core Processor[/]="http://www.newegg.c…"]AMD Quad Core Processor[/]
[[url=http://="http://www.newegg.c…"]Western Digital Hard Drive[/]="http://www.newegg.c…"]Western Digital Hard Drive[/]
[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.newegg.c…"]Corsair Memory[/]="http://www.newegg.c…"]Corsair Memory[/]

Since I do both multitrack audio & multitrack video productions, the video seems to be handled better by the Intel processors. Whereas I have found that the AMD processors have seemingly been faster in audio applications. And some manufacturers of certain pieces of hardware & software actually indicate what should be used. If Avid/ProTools says Pentium or better that doesn't mean AMD. And you're likely to find that if you should try that, nothing may work? And even if you paid $600 for ProTools 10, you'll receive no customer support from them whatsoever because you didn't assemble a system to their specifications. Obviously, Pro Fools isn't in your current production workflow. But what happens, when folks start to call you and ask you if you have Pro Fools? You can say that your FL is just as good but that won't matter to them. Pro Fools has become something of an industry standard even though there are those of us that still shun its use. I've got it but I don't use it and also probably because I don't do rap/hip-hop, sample loop driven imitation music. I also don't do much conform to video movie style postproduction. Although I do multitrack video/multitrack audio music entertainment production for folks and for that, I'm basically using Sony Vegas 9 these days. And that handles both audio & video extremely well, quickly, efficiently and intuitively.

I also don't use and don't just have a single computer. I'm currently using 3 laptops of varying age & 3 desktops of varying age all running windows XP Pro, 32-bit service pack 2. In fact, there is some software I could update to but it's required that I run service pack 3. So screw that. I have one machine that I installed service pack 3 on to and I wasn't happy with that. So I'm sticking with service pack 2 and 32-bit XP. I'm currently putting together a small music studio for a client of mine in their home and finally convinced him that a dedicated computer for his audio purposes was more prudent than trying to use his general-purpose Internet computer. He didn't quite understand why a music computer need not have antivirus running, any thing in the background running, nothing being scheduled, no automatic defragmenting, fixed sized paging file, all that stuff turned off & removed, disabled. So now he's gotten a new laptop with Windows 7 with the XP rollback feature. And that's what I'm going to do is run it in 32-bit XP mode because that's 100% adequate for what he needs to do. Plus, I haven't bothered to upgrade to Windows 7 and am not yet familiar enough with it to be comfortable setting something up for somebody else that is technically inept to begin with. His wife is a computer person and she understood exactly what I was talking about.

I am not a computer expert I'm an analog expert. Even still, a lot of people think I am a computer expert since I started building my own workstations back in 1995 from scratch. So now I maintain some computer systems for folks in a television show production company I've been involved with for nearly 30 years. I've set up plenty of home studios for many of my musician friends. Then they asked me to come over to their homes so that I can show them how to make good recordings on their home systems since they can't seem to. So I recorded and mixed on anything and everything and am basically all Intel in my own facility. That does make some sense since they are essentially the industry leader like Pro Fools is to audio. I mean you know that if you purchase a Harley Davidson motorcycle, new or old, everybody knows him, everybody understands them, everybody makes parts for them. When was the last time you tried to find a part for a used Yugo? But I digress when I would actually rather digest what John had to say. John and Bob here are really much more educated than I. I'm just crazy and highly experienced. So I guess were about equal except that they probably make a better living than I do. I know they make a better living than I do. So my recommendation is, get one of each. That way you can sit on the bench while Mark figures out what's going on.

I know my highly educated friends here just roll their eyes back into their head every time I spew forth or fifth. Yeah, a fifth. I know I got that right since five is bigger than four.
Mx. Remy Ann David

I haven't used my Rain AMD ION beast for a while but last I remember, it never noticed it to be less snappy than my new 965 i7 with 8 gig. The ION is a 2.4 quad with 16 gig and it rocks. Both are on win 7 64bit. This AMD is great for both Audio and Video.

I switched to my new Intel box only because it is a quieter build. Its so quiet I hardly know its on.

Optimize whatever you choose, and make sure you have a good PSU. Also, if you are doing a lot of VSTi you need a powerful computer. If you are doing very little VSTi, your don't need that powerful a computer. If you are using a lot of Plug-ins, you need a powerful computer.

All this being said, I think Intel is a better move but either are great as long as they are optimized and built well.