Intel of AMD dual core?

[poggy]

Hi all,
I've been out of the loop for awhile so I'm not too up to spec on the latest cpu's. I'm looking to upgrade my HTPC to a dual core, right now I'm running a AMD Clawhammer but I'm not sure which dual core chip would be best suit performance wise in vista.

I was looking at:

Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail - £58.74
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.20GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail - £51.69
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+ 2.40GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail - £64.61

I'll be watching a lot of HD content too, the board ill be using will be a mATX.

An comments on the differences between the three chips would be great, I'm not overall bothered about overclocking the chip but will if i can get a better performance out of it.

Many thanks
Poggy

 

[poggy]

Great thanks everyone for the replys. I think I'll sit back and wait for the price cuts and take it from there.

I'm used to AMD but I might go down the Intel road for a change.

Cheers
Poggy

 

[poggy]

These are supposed to be very good

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-125-AB&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=326

GFX on board with HDMI and accelerated HD playback so you won't need an uber CPU.

Very tempted to buy one of these pup's myself, I'd love to build one with a SSD!

I presume the is only going to be using as a HCPC so it will probably suck for gaming

HEADRAT

My original HTPC build was built with gaming in mind but I never bothered as much as I thought I would have, so this time round I'm cutting that part out, so it's just for TV etc.

 

[poggy]

Go for the 2160, good heatsink/fan and overclock it a bit

I might just do that, trying to keep the cost down but will see what happens.