This is still my first day at Techspot, but I see many of these responces to questions like "AMD or Intel?" being answered by the processors speed or price. Being in the market to possibly upgrade my processor, I am looking at an article from PC Magazine earlier this month (Sept. 06). Their answer fell more on the line of, "What do you intend to use your computer for?" to determine the better coprocessor for your computer.
Copying from their graphic (a very quick-and-dirty outline, with some tongue-in-cheek references) gives a reasonable idea of what an individual may need.
THE GAMER
Age: 20-something
Profession: Unemployed and living with parents
Favorite Applications: Quake 4, Call of Duty, Battlefield II
Chip recommendations: Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU, 2 GB RAM,
nVidia SLI chipset, two nVidia GeForce 7900 GPUs
THE ENGINEER
Age: 40-something
Profession: Database Guru
Favorite Applications: FoxPro, DB2, SQL Server
Chip Recommendations: AMD Athlon 64 FX_62, 2 GB RAM,
nVidia GeForce 6150 chipset with integrated graphics
THE VIDEO IPOD FANATIC
Age: 30-something
Profession: dot.com PR specialist
Favorite Applications: iTunes, Quick Time Pro
Chip recommendations: Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU, 1 GB RAM
ATI Crossfire chipset, ATI Radeon X1800 GPU
THE CODER
Age: 40-something
Profession: Software designer
Favorite Applications: VMware Workstation, Eclipse Workbench
Chip Recommendations: Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM
Intel P965 Express chipset, nVidia GeForce 7600 GPU
As I said earlier this come from PC Magazine, I'm just the messenger!
But it indicates to me that we should upgrade for what uses we have, not by price. It will probably Save in the long run.