Hi David, well they are both good processors, either one would serve you well, if you're savvy with overclocking then i would buy the core 2 duo as they overclock very well and then perform much better. The Intel would be all around better, they are very efficient and consume less power than the amd and process much more per clock cycle. If you are playing games with a high end graphics card or encoding video then you would definitely see the benefit from the intel over the Amd. If you don't need to be at the "bleeding edge" with computers and want a good processor and mobo cheap then go with amd, the intel at it's rated clock speeds would be slightly better, if you're not gonna overclock then the value is in the amd. Amds' don't overclock too well btw and have less cache on the chip. Most "enthusiasts" would go with the intel chip i'm sure.