Amd Apu (cpu + gpu) + Motherboard combo: a6-3500 Llano 2.1ghz w Radeon HD 6530D, gigabyte GA-A55M-DS2 $125 free shipping @ Newegg

Quote from p1971 : Let me play devil's advocate for a minute. Microcenter has the Phenom II X6 1045T and Asus M5A78L-M LX PLUS for $120 plus tax. The 1045T overclocks easily to 3.375 Ghz. (13.5 x 250) At the 250 Mhz system clock the HT and NB can be set to 2000 so they are at stock speeds. Change the memory multiplier to the 1066 speed and with the overclock it gets put at exactly 1333. The 3.375 is almost exactly at the same speed as an 1100T. You can probably push higher, but this is easy, requires no more voltage, and you can use the stock heatsink as long as case cooling is decent. Now add the Kingston DDR3 1333 that Microcenter has for $29. This puts you at $150 plus tax. A 2500K at Microcenter is $179 by itself, but you can get it and a cheap z68 board for $200 after a rebate. With the same RAM that is $230 total, again, after rebate. The X6 path saves you $80, even after rebate, and a bit more out of pocket before rebate. If your main game is BF3, then an 1100T and a 2500K give similar minimum frame rate in multplayer. Proof here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.p...801&page=3 Is the 2500k much better overall? Sure, but you can make a case for AMD in certain situations, like BF3.

Why bother with the 2500K when the $100 at TD I3-2100 still stacks up to that X6 at less than half the heat production, same performance across the board out of TWO cores when the AMD needs SIX. Heat production and power consumption are important. Back in the day I had a room FULL of AMD athlons and even back then I had to put a window AC unit in just to make the room tolerable even with central air that kept the rest of the house FINE AMD's savings cost you in far too many other ways.

My electric only costs $.11/kwhr so its not so bad here but out west where it hits double that or more it sure is. Now with all the power savings I can get by with a MUCH smaller PSU when I finally put a proper video card in

Obviously the super threaded stuff like video encoding the AMD can pull away a bit BUT the 2 core I3 still outperforms the AMD in far too many things http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Pr...289?vs=147 If you're wanting a better apples to apples comparison you gotta find what Intel has at that same price which in this case is $100 and I still say I'd go intel because as long as you're on a decent chipset with 1155 you can still pop in a good I7 later on. I plan on waiting for I7's T lineup to drop in price because I dont want above a 70WTDP chip. When I NEED the added performance I can just overclock it but for daily stuff having the really low voltage saves a ton.