I’ve always been an AMD girl for multiple reasons that I won’t bore you with by listing (but if you’re _really_ interested, you can e-mail me directly: cpugsley@peer1.com), heh. Reading around online I stumbled across an article on Engadget that peaked my interest. It seems the guys at Extreme Tech are testing AMD’s Phenom X4 9850 against Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q9300.

AMD falls behind the Intel processor in just about every respect, including its ability to be overclocked. One advantage that AMD has is that lower cost will likely offset the performance issues for many users, and it does still boast “moderate overclockability” as well as running cooler than the Intel chip. ExtremeTech apparently isn’t convinced that AMD‘s pricing is “sustainable over the long haul”.

The Q9300 makes the most of its four cores and 45nm manufacturing process, with the only significant downside being that it packs only have the cache of the rest of Intel’s quad core line. That wasn’t enough to stop it from snagging an impressive 9 out of 10 rating, however, with ExtremeTech declaring it “one of the best price/performance CPUs you can find.”

Read more about this from ExtremeTech by clicking here.