Quote - I'm curious. Why are you going from the AMD 64 bit to the Core 2 Intel CPU?  Is the Intel CPU much better?  I too always have other programs open when I'm rendering--usually Photoshop or some other graphics editing program, and, of course, I'm always on the internet.

I'm going over to Core 2 because it's faster (even though my liquid-cooled FX-60@3 Ghz is no slouch) and can be overclocked relatively easily. Numerous benchmarks have demonstrated that (and made a real impact on AMD owners like me...). The speed increase is not as high when running 64 bit apps, but the Core 2 still have a performance advantage in general. The prices are also very attractive, giving a superb performance/price ratio.

Later this year, Intel will also release quad-core CPUs such as  Kentsfield (I've seen benchmarks of this processor -- a so-called Intel Engineering Sample -- and the performance numbers are impressive indeed!), and I plan to upgrade to one of those when they're released.