Right, OCUK have the new Intel bits listed:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/search_results.php?sortby=priceAsc&search=newcpulaunch&utm_source=newsletter20100106&utm_medium=email

The i3 isn't as cheap as expected. Probably just early adopters tax, but worth bearing in mind. £180ish for board and chip vs. £140ish for the X2 and Asus board. Haven't seen any numbers for direct comparisons though. Of course if you buy the Gigabyte UD2, there's the option of i5 or i7 drop in upgrade later on. Interesting.....

Id have to agree with you. Although with the Phenom II X4 is there much difference between the two companies now?? In terms of cost-performance I think that AMD is slightly beating Intel

The i3 is [LIFTED], in a word. You simply can't compare it to a Phenom II.

I can, and I did. What's so bad about it? Nehalem architecture is vastly superior to AMDs. Don't get me wrong, I love AMD and was considering an AM3 based system recently. However, i3 is more efficient and better performing than an X2 550. Yeah, compared to an X4 965 it won't be as fast. However, the price difference is a fair bit and just about everyone would agree that if you're looking at a new build an X4 Phenom makes no sense when compared with an i5-750. The price is virtually identical and the performance certainly isn't.

I think the key thing is set a budget and stick to it. That will determine your options.

I'm quite sure, clock for clock (regardless of speed for speed), AMD CPU's use quite a bit more power. Strange as ATi video cards are usually efficient. One thing I read said that for a person using an AMD Phenom setup 'enthusiastically' could rack up £40 more in usage over the year than a similar speed Intel setup.

Something to think about when considering price.

In the old days buying processors was simple, Intels range was simple (and crap), and the Athlon and Opeteron were the ones to go for depending on budget. But now....I wouldn't know where to start on speccing a rig, even up to Core 2 Quad nm it was still quite easy, but Intel have i3, seveal flavours of i5 and i7, overlapping performance in different market slots, different sockets, total confusion.

I can't see whatever you posted, and I'm not referring to any of the old cards, like the 2900 or the 4870X2 which both supped power out of the wall like nobody's business, I'm on about the recent 5 series, they are very efficient.

I'm baffled by the range of chips from Intel at least these days

I went for an Intel E5300 dual-core in my gaming system, with power efficiency in mind, having seen at the time that the 45nm Intels were more efficient than Athlon X2s by a fair margin (65W TDP to 89W for a 2.6GHz 5000+).

It runs at 2.6GHz, costs £50, fits into a £30 skt775 MOBO (also a "power efficient" Gigabyte jobby), overclocks well and consumes power extremely slowly. Idle system including monitor eats 88W (yes I'm sad enough to have a meter plug) and running Fallout 3 ("under load") with an equally efficient ATI HD4650 takes it up to 145W.

As for future proof, I'm confident that Internet explorer 20 and Office 2020 will run on it just fine! Might upgrade the video card slightly in a year or so if I feel like it. SSD will be the next upgrade though.

If I were to get a dual core socket775 cpu and a cheap - but decent, mobo and stick a decent amount of ram in it, how future proof would it be?
And how would it compare to a Phenom II X2?
Regards

Not future proof at all, a good 775 chip should still beat a Phenom 2 x2 though (but no upgrade path)

Hmm, how long would the system (775 system) be good for in your opinion? And could go up to Quad Core - granted architecture wont be as good

In theory it'll be good for a few years yet providing you're not like me & need to have the latest & greatest all the time (hence my massive spares stock)

Hehe, you got any going btw? XD Or shall I repost in wanted section? XD

If it is our office, 10 years

We still have Pentium II machines in use and the average PC is an Athlon XP with 256MB RAM.