Its faster in some things, certainly not in others.
Read anandtechs entire articles, they ALWAYS test not at the gpu limits in games so as to show the difference between cpu's in non gpu limited situations, there is never a single reason not to be running at gpu limited settings, ever. AT which point most of those graphs would end up within 4-5% of each other, sometimes less than 1%.
For gaming you'd be mad to spend a load on an expensive system, there really isn't a single game out there you can't max out on a £60 chip, if you get a low end quad core there won't be a game out there that can't be maxed out with it in the next couple years. Keeping in mind a much lower end chip, will also waste a lot less power idle, and when at load. An i7 muches quite a lot of power under load(so does a P2 quad) even when they are gpu limited all cores will be at full load voltage and clocks. A 65W quad is the way I'd go for power saving, performance, overclocking if you need it, more than enough for gaming.
Frankly if you have a c2d, or up, you're set for gaming, there aren't any amd/intel chips in the past couple years that can't overclock well enough to be fine in all games, certainly no more recent chips, if you have a quad an upgrade will bring you nothing at all.
But it depends, people brought up gaming and the OP hasn't said he wants it for anything else.
If you're gaming is the only intensive thing you do with your computer an I5 is quite literally peeing money down the drain. You really should let us know what your current setup is, a huge number of people need the bare minimum of upgrades to game and its usually their graphics card and not cpu/mem/mobo/system.
For gaming, I wouldn't spend anything over £100, its just not worth it at all, there is no situation, crossfire, quadfire, trip sli included that will benefit you. Sure in crossfire setups a i7 will show a difference at 1680x1050, if you game with quadfire/sli'd top end cards at a resolution that low you're a plonker.
The Bandit, its actually interesting but AMD often have very very good minimum framerates, they don't have the raw horsepower to get the highest maxes, but often match and can sometimes beat an i7 on minimums, plus many people have commented, including anandtech, that a P2 system can often feel smoother in games than an i7... if that was down to earlier drivers and they've changed their opinion now I don't know, but lots of people mentioned that early on.
Also remember that for the rest of this year, AMD will get 6 core cpu's, probably in the £150-300 bracket and will almost certainly spank anything Intel can offer in terms of i5/i3 and maybe i7 with ease(in some things it will spank it, in amd's weakest/i7 strongest area's it might not but should match it, beat it or come very close.
Intel will get a 6 core also, but being that it will be limited to $1000, its really not worth speaking about and will only be on the i7 platform iirc?
With the new i3's and i5's, bear in mind as of yet you can't turn off the intergrated gpu, which is apparently a bit bothersome, and its crap for gaming and really a waste of money for a gaming setup, though great value with a cheap specific mobo without an IGP on the mobo chipset.
End of this year pushing into next, most people will be wanting to upgrade to AMD's new architecture and redesigned/next gen clarkdale/quads/octo's from Intel which I'm not sure if they'll require new mobo's or not.
This year AMD has more upgradability if you can't afford $1000 cpu's.. IF you might want to upgrade later this year. I'd also go AMD for anything gaming, and anything low end, i5 setups really only if you absolutely require the extra cpu power, photoshop, encoding, 3d apps(NOT gaming), plenty of other things. Gaming, IE/Firefox, flash, youtube, save money and go AMD, a X4/X3 or a low low end Intel will do you fine.