Considering scraping AMD

[clocker]

...there doesn't seem to be a viable upgrade path for anything just now. The manufacturer who gets that right will get my vote, and probably the backing of many others, even if performance is slightly behind. Somehow I don't see Intel being the driving force here.

Not sure I agree with you here, lynx.
Intel has been the only logical choice (IMO, naturally) ever since the debut of the Core2 series and given AMD's fab problems, may be the only option in the relatively near future.

Of course, Intel has no incentive to stabilize the socket architecture even if AMD goes belly up but lately it seems like the biggest incentive to upgrade has been chipset based, not processor.
The LGA 775 socket seems to be a safe bet for the near future even though it has the worst HS retention system in modern memory.

[onlinetragedy]

i would certainly wait for amd's next gen cpu line. their quad core shall crush all and amd shall rise to be the great lord of light and smite down the evil minion know as "intel"!

[clocker]

i would certainly wait for amd's next gen cpu line. their quad core shall crush all and amd shall rise to be the great lord of light and smite down the evil minion know as "intel"!

Dream on.

[psxcite]

You could always wait and eventually something will come out that will crush something or other. But RIGHT now, the Intel processor is where it's at..so to speak.

I just bought a E2160 for $80 for my son's system and overclocked it to 3.0ghz. Intel is definately more bang for the buck nowadays.