Actually, I have two of these boxes, but the second one is using the slowest, oldest of the AMD 6 core cpu, and it has nothing special for a  video card. This box is dedicated to the Realflow program, which is basically a computer simulation and doesn't want anything fancy for a video card. It just needs a deep CPU setup. I'll probably upgrade its CPU to the AMD 1100T next month.

One of my model-building buddies has an intel cpu on an intell version of ASUS Crossfire Extreme III with 16 GB of RAM also. He renders Vue scenes out faster than my box, maybe by as much as 15 - 20 % faster, but that seems to be the only significant difference.

In both cases, our boxes are built for reliability/stability and model-building using a wide variety of high-end expensive applications, Photoshop, and often multi-tasking, rather than rendering. I'm not over-clocking, and I don't think Clark's box is overclocked either.

If all you plan to do is use your box for Vue and some misc apps, such as web browsing, you probably want a machine aimed more at rendering than anything else. This might take you more in the Intel direction than in the AMD direction. However, I keep an eye on the AMD mobo-builders' forums all the time, and those that do overclock to get fantastic rendering speeds are using the 6-core chips and either the ASUS or MSI motherboards.

For my money (meaning my personal opinion), ASUS motherboards are the best overclockers for a novice, and extremely stable. You could safely purchase an AMD 6-core, and ASUS gamer's board, such as the Crossfire Extreme V, 4 to 16GB of RAM, and overclock this thing, even if you have never done such a thing. You could keep up with anybody on the planet, in terms of rendering speeds, and not have outlayed even half of what an intel rig would cost you.

Lots of fanboys around for intel boxes, but they might not all be working on their boxes for a living like I do. Me, I'm a hardware geek, I admit it, but an AMD 6-core fan for sure.