pffieu, I've read it ALL.
Damn, it's like the never ending story...
DISCLAIMER:
the following text s purely my opinion, with a few facts. I don't know everything about Intel processors, or AMD processors. I owned a PII 600, now I own an AMD Thunderbird 900. I don't care what processor is better, I know mine pc kicks ass. And please, if you don't agree with my opinion, don't talk about my mother.
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Check this:
I had a pentium, and I couldn't overclock it. That was a major set back. The heatsink took a lot of space in my case, which was a mini case. I won't talk about stability, coz it could be windows 98 or earlier versions of the proc.
I have an AMD now, overclocked from 800 to 1gig, with A LOT of extra cooling (2 blowholes on the side, a big fan in the front, two in the back, and two fans on the heatsink). I don't game for 48 hours, but RTCW for about 5-6 hours tops brings the temp to 58-60° C (summertime), idle temp is 28-30° C (summertime). I have no stability problems, nor wiith my thunderbird, nor with the VIA chipset. I'm an AMD man.
Now here it comes... Few months ago tomshardware did a proc test on amd's and pentiums: they were playing Q3 I think, and while playing they removed the cooler. 2 AMD's were tested, and two Pentiums, each pair had different types of processor.
Both AMD's went up in smoke, together with the mobo's. One pentium went up in smoke without destroying the mobo, one pentium just stopped, but after restarting, and resetting the cooler, the proc was OK.
Now, the test was a little x-treme... But when your cooler fails? My bios shuts down the pc if the fan speed drops under 2000. Thats a feature to prevent damage.
I guess both proc's have their adventages. Intel is better in math they say, and amd is good @ graphics... choice is yours.
Anywayz, just my two cents, and if you guys want, I can look for the movie of the TH test, and post it somewhere.
Greetz
Lukas