Digital Home Thoughts: Tom's Hardware Compares Four Quad-Core Architectures At 2.8 GHz

"AMD and Intel are relentless when it comes to diversifying their respective CPU portfolios across every possible corner of the processor market where someone might want to spend money. The good news is that these efforts give us lots of technology options across the entire price spectrum. But buyers who don't follow the daily cadence of processor development couldn't possibly know whether Core i7 or Core 2 Quad is the newer product, or how these compare to AMD's own line of obscurely-named models. In some ways, it doesn't matter which chips were launched most-recently. The more important consideration might be which processor offers the best total performance relative to its peers, and one of the best ways to judge this is with a shoot-out at a given clock rate."

If you're up to date on the performance merits of each major CPU type, this article won't be a shocker - but if you're not a hardcore CPU geek and are curious about where each of the major chips from Intel and AMD rank in relation to each other, this article is worth a read. I won't spoil the results for you, but it boils down to this: if performance matters to you more than money, buy an Intel chip. If the reverse is true, buy an AMD chip.