a choice soon between amd and intel

[dalex]

i have posted this already and been asked to post it here

time for a minor upgrade
pc is for games,surfing,video encoding,downloading,large juke box,tv output just about everthing it can do
its now
asrock dual sata
amd 3700 at 2.53 ghz (fast enough until i need to multitask ie video encode and surf)
2 x 1gb good samsung ram at 230 mhz
25o gb hard drive
pioneer dvr-110d
7900 gs
vista ultimate
all parts coming out will be used in one of the kids computers

my choices are
£100 opteron 165 running as fast as its little legs will carry it

£150 asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA
Intel Core 2 DUO E4300
or Intel Core 2 DUO E6300

i have never built intel so i am in need of some advice here to enable me to make the right choices
please just give good honest advice
thanks
dave

 

[Phunky Phish]

Right now go for Intel every time mate!

 

[WJA96]

In all honesty, that motherboard and single channel RAM will do a darn good job of hiding the power of the Core2Duo's under a bushel.

That motherboard may or may not overclock - the jury is still out on that as no-one that has one has overclocked it as far as I know.

If you can find a decent cheap X2, that could well give a decent performance boost without having to switch everything.

You would be significantly better off selling your existing kit and putting your £100-£150 plus the proceeds of the sale towards something like a Gigabyte DS3/E6300/PC6400 RAM combination that will do 2.8-3.2GHz almost guaranteed and give you an across the board performance uplift.