Updating the 'puter for hardcore ownage

[Wyrm]

EDIT: After further internet research, I need to respond to this a bit more. AMD does not consume less power than the Intel dual core CPUs, especially not the newer 45nm Intel chips.

Take kandrathe's AMD X2 6000+ versus my choice of the Intel C2D E8400. I found a nice review that pits them against each other (and other dual core CPUs).

I said the BE line when I mentioned power consumption, which the charts you provide don't even list. There's also the new 4x50e chips (also not listed) with G2 stepping. While they can't equal the performance of a higher end processor (the 4850e is closest at 2.5 GHz); if you look at the charts here, you'll see they're still consuming less power than the others, which adds up to roughly $20 USD savings on your electric bill per year.

Getting a bit further off topic: the performance gain of a high end 3GHz CPU over that of a slightly lower 2.6 GHz one isn't really noticable, which can be seen if you look at this article.