Ever since I have been assembling my own PC, I only have been using AMD, in my opinion the best bang for your buck processor.
Man you may be a fan of AMD, but Intel is better and thats a fact. Looking back when there were 4 main processor makers: Intel, AMD, Zilog and one more (g power?). Intel and AMD decided to exchange their patents to each other to eliminate the two competitors. So they were on the same level because they both knew the exact same technology, now Intel is ahead, not much but ahead.
Again. For those who are a bit slow: AMD and Intel are COMPANIES and not CPUs! umm? Intel licensed it technology to many manufacturers. Zilog never was of any importance after the Z80 (big because of Sinclairs ZX81 and Spectrum). Please define "better" if you don't mind. Please tell me which CPU to buy, given that I want to do the following: Surfin the Net, writing letters to my aunt, do homebanking. Should I get a Sempron 3400 or an Intel Q6600?
But Zilog still was considered an Intel and AMD competitor. Linux is Microsoft competitor, this doesn't mean 60% of computers run on Windows and rest 40% on Linux right. Competition is competition, no matter the impact. Better means Intel produces more reliable processors than AMD. Most notebook and laptop manufacturers still do it with Intel not AMD, and thats not because of the price, i consider AMD is a little cheaper than Intel. And regarding your last question, for the purposes you have, you can even get an asus eee laptop for it, which will provide yo the mobility, so you can write a letter to you aunt right off the next wifi spot.
I never heard anyone saying that Zilog was ever a big competitor to AMD or Intel in the early/mid 80's. If any I'd rather put Motorola to that role who had real modern CPU with their MC68k design and later the PPC together with IBM and Apple. There are several reasons, why many of the bigh guys like to play with Intel. - incentives. You get quite some money if you actively market/sell Intel CPUs. - price. Intel will make that price that is needed to get the deal. OEM prices have nothing to do with enduser prices. - Intel chipsets. Very high quality (I'm talking about the stuff on the mobo!). Not designed for the last 2% of performance, but for reliabitiy. Makes a difference if you need to support your customers. Again LOL! This urban legend basically goes back to the old K5 models which WERE a bit tricky sometimes. It had not much to do with later models, except when so called "experts" assembled their own PCs with the then naked-die XPs and killed them when attaching the cooler. Maybe that was AMD's fault, but why on earth is each idiot allowed to assemble his own PC and later blame the mfc when something is broken??
Sorry? You mean I feel better if I have "Intel Inside?" Or do you mean, that I will get a better price if I need to sell it somewhere in the future? CPUs aren't cars. In 1 year - regardless of CPU - the PC is worth max 45-50% of today's price. In 2 years this value is even lower and in 3 years you are lucky if you get a handfull of bucks.