Please help! Intel core 2 duo or Athlon AMD 64 X2?

I am buying a new computer and choosing between the following two. I would love your opinions. Thanks.

1) AMD 64X2 5200
Processor speed 2.6GHz
Bus Speed 2000MHz
Level 2 Cache 2x1MB
Video Memory: Partiall shared, 399MB
$950

2)Intel Core 2 duo E6400
Processor speed 2.1GHz
Bus Speed 1066MHz
Level 2 Cache 2MB
Video Memory, Dedicated, 256MB
$1200

This computer will be used for home computing (Office Word, Excell, etc), Photography/Video editing, and some gaming. We also want to watch/record TV. Thanks for all the advice.

I'm sorry but I forgot to add that everything else is the same (I only listed the differences) They both have:
RAM 2GB, expandable to 4GB
Memory Type: 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-4200)
Hard drive: size500GB, speed 7200
both have good graphics card
Thanks again.

the difference between the two is very small. I would say that the Athlon for having the 2.6ghz and a bigger bus speed should work a bit faster. I have a Athlon X2 myself and works wonderfully. But to tell you the truth for the things you'll be using it for you won't be able to tell the difference. Then you have the price that makes the Athlon always more attractive.

Intel. Some people are either one way or the other, but you still can't touch Intel's processing power and reliability. Goodluck!

personally i am a lover of intel and so i would go with the intel chip.

I would like to recommend checking out this page at Tom's Hardware (link below). On that page you can select two processors (including the ones you listed above) and see a benchmark between the processors. I'd recommend the Divx and Photoshop benchmarks to see how your processor choices fair. If one of the games you tend to play is listed as a choice, run that too.

Personally I've been a fan of AMD but the Core 2 Duo's are mighty tempting. I'm glad to see the competition between the two manufacturers and hope the two of them drive each other to improvement (performance, price, and power efficiency).

NOTE: Did not see the AMD 64 X2 5200 listed by the 5000 and 5600 are. The Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 seems to win out over both AMD models in performance but not by much. I guess it comes down to a price difference for you. Is the gain worth $250?

i would go for the amd processor even though i am an intel person because that is a low-end C2duo and the amd processor has more processing power and is just a better processor compared to the 2.1GHz C2duo. although if ur looking for a computer to do some gaming or graphic developement on you should make sure your computer is'nt using onboard video memory. if you get an ATI all-in-wonder video card it has a built in tv tuner as well as a GPU.

Intels are usually more expensive, but AMD is worth more for gaming, and for some reason, they usually show up faster than they were clocked.

Like for instance, mine's a Turion X2 Dual-Core TL-56 1.8 ghz. But it's clocked at 3.63ghz. Weird huh?

I would be more concerned about the amount of main RAM and the precise nature of the graphics. Motherboard graphics might not provide full hardware support for the things you want to do.

I have both an AMD 64 x2 and and core Duo System. The AMD is not as much of an Intel killer as it used to. The AMD does very well on 3D games, but falls a little behind on video editing.

I would go with whatever one is most cost effective for you.

Remember that while AMDs rating is true for games, it is not always the case in raw cpu intense apps like video editing.

AMD is best for you.

No. 2 would have the edge in gaming and video editing. For the other apps you mentioned, you would not see any difference.