You are correct, but there is a reason for it. Value is subjective to a given user. My posts in this topic (not necessarily in reply to you directly) have plenty of facts, e.g. price, performance, etc. At the end the numbers are just that, numbers. You have to translate the numbers to real world meaning. Thats where the words like 'value' 'satisfaction' 'opinion' come in.

If you ask user to spend $100 for product A and $200 for product I, the user will ask, what do I get in return? You can thrown the numbers you used on him, but most user will come back in return and say, is the difference in numbers really WORTH (another word!) the $100 (or twice) the difference? Or maybe, since we are talking about computers, can I use the $100 and spend it on something else that provides much more value (here it is) that if I spend it on CPU? How about more memory, how about better graphics card, how about bigger monitor. How about not spending it at all on computers and taking your wife out for a nice dinner, she will see lots of value in that :-)

Good conversation, there is no right or wrong, just different people look at this differently. Intel is doing a decent job with pushing the performance and power savings, it is just not that important to me.

We all buy products at certain point in time. At this point in time, this is the best value. Few years ago when Fry's was offering crazy discounts on Intel CPU/motherboard bundles, Intel value was much better a well (not accounting for future upgradability prospects).

You misread my comment. My comment implies that I can buy newer/better motherboard and slower/older CPU and upgrade to newer/better CPU when the prices decrease. This is possible becase the newer motherboard supports the older CPUs and the CPUs actually decrease in price. With Intel motherboards it is not simply as easy. For one, the socket change and they are not backward compatible and for two as this article comfirms, the CPUs don't decrease in price as much.

1156 was current model at the time I bought it 2 years ago. Too bad it lasted only 1 generation of CPUs.

Now lets look at AMD3+ socket

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_AM3

You are correct that there is more caveats to this and the comparison is not as simple, the point though is that the value and savings go beyond just CPU when you start taking into account other components.

Of course assuming that you run at top performance :-). The real usage is not nearly that. Most computers are most of the time idle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_design_power

There is definitely no discussion about which chip is faster and had more features. My point is, the AMD provides a really good value for the money. Sure you can outspend yourself to higher performance, but spending money is easy.The question is if the higher cost will reflect itself in higher productivity, satisfaction, usability, etc. In my opinion at today's performance levels 99% percent of people will not notice. I have a monster dual CPU 4 core each (8 with HT) Intel workstation I am writing this on which I use for daily hard code SW development and let me tell you, I don't see difference in may daily routine between this and my AMD based desktop which I use for similar tasks.

Sorry
Intel Core i5-3450 @ 3.10GHz - score 7052.

So yes, you pay for higher performance. The point is though to get best value. Once you count in the motheboard you have 2x cost for 1.4x performance.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

AMD Phenom II X6 1045T - scrore 4999
Intel Xeon X3450 @ 2.67GHz - score 5223

X6 costs with MB $90.

You know that the difference between Phenon II X6 1045T and Core i5 3550 is less than 20W? Most people would not even notice. I certainly don't.

If by "cost the same" means you can get Intel with motherboard for $90 as you can get the AMD

http://www.microcenter.com/site/products/amd_bundles.aspx

then I would love to know where you source your components. Microcenter lists the i5 3450 at $145

http://www.microcenter.com/product/388579/Core_i5_3450_31GHz_LGA_1155_Processor

which is whooping $500 more than the AMD and doesn't even include the motherbord. Newegg has it $100 more.

Dont even get me started on upgrade path where Intel changes the socket so often that it is hard to keep up and you not only have to change the CPU but also the motherboard. My latest Intel (yes I have both :-) used LGA 1156 which was replaced with incompatible socket LGA 1155 soo after. That means that I cannot reap benefits of decreasing prices (if any such decrease would happen) without incurring additional cost of upgrading motherboard.

With AMD and AM2/AM3/AM3+ socket evolution I am able to purchase better motherboard and lower cost processor and then upgrade as prices decrease.

I buy and use AMD simply because it is the best value for the money

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_available.html

Microcenter or Fry's throws is also cheap motherboard. For $90 you can get top performing AMD CPU and motherboard. My 4 core AMD supports 3 way multiseat and runnning 4 X11 sessions on Ubuntu 12.04 just fine. Match that Intel.

Suprisingly few people ended up using Fedora, interesting. Me

Desktop: Mandrake -> Fedora -> Ubuntu -> Kubuntu (also tried OpenSuse/Suse/Arch/Knoppix/DSL/Puppy)
Server: Mandrake -> Fedora -> CentOS + RHEL
Embedded: Arch

I second this. Just get another drive and start from scratch on that drive. If you need any data from the old drive, do it on a isolated computer on different non standard OS (*BSD or *nix) to prevent cross contamination. I would also reapply BIOS in case they found a way to infect it.

didnt know that, will have to take a look at it, thanks

LVM is another possibility. If you can get SATA drives and plug them all in, you can then create LVM volume spanning all the drives and just simply copy the data over to one large volume. LVM will take care how to span it across the drives.