When comparing OC'd Intel vs. OC'd AMD, it seems like Intel still seems to have the edge, especially for gaming, and psrticularly when the FX-8150 retails ~270 and the i5 retails ~240 atm.

I fondly remember my AMD 1700+, but my last two builds have been Intel E8400 and now i5 2500k... I wish AMD would get back into competing on performance but it really seems like they've given up on the high end.

from here: Bit-Tech

"Overclocked Performance Analysis
While our overclocking efforts produced a significant boost for the FX-8150 in every test and application, the two rival Sandy Bridge CPUs also gained masses of performance after their hefty overclocks. While the FX-8150 at least managed to overhaul the Core 2 Duo E670o in the image editing test with a score of 1,077, the 5GHz Core i5-2500K was over twice as fast with a score of 2,228.

At 4.818GHz the FX-8150 was faster than a stock speed Core i5-2500K in our video encoding test, but was around 800 points behind that CPU operating at 5GHz. At least the FX-8150 managed to keep ahead of the Core i7-920 when both were overclocked, if only by 65 points.

However, the 4.818GHz FX-8150 dropped back to second-last place in the multi-tasking test and overall – the Core i7-920 managed to overhaul its deficiencies in both tests thanks to its 4.04GHz overclock. This left the Core i5-2500K and Core i7-2600K way ahead of the FX-8150, with 2,662 and 2,791 points overall respectively, rather than 1,860.

When overclocked, the FX-8150 was on par with the overclocked Core i5-2500K and Core i7-920 in WPrime, a poor result considering AMD’s claims that it’s an 8-core CPU while the Core i5 is quad-core and the i7-920 invents four of its threads thanks to Hyper-Threading. The FX-8150 also failed to overtake the Core i7-2600K in Cinebench R11.5 when both were overclocked, managing just 7.95 points rather than 9.78.

Even in the one game that the FX-8150 could run without catastrophic failure and a system re-boot, it was lacking speed with a minimum of 70fps in Arma II. That’s slower than the Core i5-2500K at stock speed (which managed a minimum of 86fps) and only 1fps faster than the Phenom II X6 1100T operating 618MHz slower."

If one writes an article on game FPS, the results are much closer -- often nearly identical and rarely far enough apart to "see" the difference. Most games play at 30fps or higher; thus, FPS differences become invisible. Therefore, to argue that AMD is deficient because its MINIMUM speed is 70FPS in ARMA II (faster than most LED monitors can even display as they are limited to 60FPS), is misleading (no one will see the difference). Moreover, as Skatezilla points out, most games are GPU limited (or are not significantly CPU limited). My comments here are always directed towards gaming on a budget.

Nonetheless, Intel is measurably faster. People who do significant video editing should pay the price and buy Intel (a fast Intel, not just any Intel). Intel desktop Ivy Bridge is due in April. At 22nm, it should be very strong -- it may make arguing for AMD CPUs on the basis of performance/price pretty difficult -- unless the Intel prices are high