Quote - My 2 core i5 is almost as fast as your  4 or 6 core AMD Phenom II, so it's safe to say that the asker should buy an i7 if he wants the fastest machine available and not fall for the AMD's lower prices. Spent a little more and he will get a lot more preformance.

True indeed that the Intels are faster on a per core basis.  However, when I built my system last Fall, the price difference between a six-core Phenom II and an I7 was well over $400; the price/performance curve just wasn't in favour of the Intel chip for me as a hobbyist.  The price difference today at New Egg is still $420 between the 8 core FX and the 6-core I7; one could build a pretty decent second machine for that.  However, prices have come down a lot since on the I5 quad cores...

How fast does your rig render using 4 threads vs 2?

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