If you want to spend under $150 on any given component, I think AMD can be good bang for the buck compared to what Intel gives. If you're willing to spend over $250, AMD can't match it. Your BIL probably spent less on his by far, and I'm betting that if he spent the same amount on Intel he'd get even worse performance than he does now.
If cost is your overriding concern, you can get good performance from AMD for what little you spend. If smooth gameplay is equally important, and you upgrade bits and pieces as opposed to doing the whole thing at once, you can get much better out of Intel.
Of course, if you insist on having multiple PCs to pay to maintain, then AMD becomes even more attractive because saving $75 on one CPU isn't nearly as big as saving it on 3 or more. However, in a single PC scenario, Intel will win unless you're unwise about where you buy stuff from and what you're buying.
The Jedi Master
I generally agree with all this, but regarding the point on the last item about multiple PCs; if you need to buy and setup multiple machines I agree. But as AMD is likely to see you needing an upgrade before intel, but mainly because I've found Intel CPUs have a longer useful life as gaming workhorses, so when they retire they're "service life" (including that of the mobo and other support components) is often more used up.
Case in point, when I was building my first DIY desktop with a Phenom II X4 back around 2010, My little brother was still happily using his DT with an Intel Q660, which he bought from iBuypower in 2008. That rig lasted through 3 or 4 GPU upgrades (the last GPU being carried over to a new rig I built for him) and kept him happy. Eventually he started getting odd heat spikes on the cores, and decided it was time to upgrade the whole kit in 2013. It probably just needed a new CPU cooler (the liquid one IBP put on was well past due for an upgrade, considering the thing never got it's dust filter cleaned).
The same year, I decided to upgrade my Phenom, which just wasn't cutting it in my CPU intensive games. (I also was getting tired of the driver headaches that came with the AMD cards around that time, and didn't want to run an nvidia card with an AMD CPU, which made the choice easier). The Phenom just didn't have the legs of the Intel CPU. That said, my current intel rig is still going strong, and I feel no reason to upgrade any of my kit, save for the power supply (it's about that time). The kit of the AMD still sits in my basement.
The point here being, your likely to find yourself in a multi-device house hold with AMD, as you'll want to upgrade before the machines service life is up, but you're more likely to hang in for the long haul.
Of course, I also have a laptop that sees service as a backup PC from 2008 with a core 2 Duo, which could still do daily office work if my DT wasn't around. So I guess that shoots down my theory
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