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No. 4133
>>4132
going to guess the AMD, though technically the relative amount of energy is minimal, say less than your refrigerator. It's usage over time and miniscule drain from low power states that kills.
For the time being, anything in the Intel Line is relatively solid and powerful. i5 is still the sweet spot, with Intels' architecture being re-adopted by Apple. There's the possibility of throwing together a hackintosh, or better yet, a virtual mac (or, if Apple was smart, a version of OSx just hands down compatible with Intel PCs). Raw power, stability, mucho D$nero.
AMD has pledged the AM3+ board to be useable by their next few iterations of processors. Bulldozers' shitty initial showing belies the fact that, going forward, the CPU/GPU model will only increase in power. That said, AMD is still the bargain chip company, and the systems feel slightly less stable. If gaming on the cheap is what you're after, AMD represents an interesting choice. But they're trying to compete with ARM processors, the driving force behind all smartphones and tablets now. Which, those are on the rise, but are so far away from actual computers that it's laughable.
I'd ask whether you've budgeted for a video card at this point?
tl;dr
Intel $1000-$1500 us
AMD $600-$1000 us
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