Lmfao Jeal have you been frozen for that past 5 years or something?
The truth of the matter is that gaming is 90% GPU limited, and whether you pick an Intel or AMD processor is not as relevant as it used to be. It's not irrelevant, but the days of AMD being the "gamer's CPU" are dead.
[Taken from a review]
Historically, AMD CPUs have been THE processors to have if you are a serious gamer. While that used to be correct for very clear architecture reasons, the edge AMD once held in the gaming arena is dulled from five years of battle with Intel. AMD's Phenom chips generally can't compare with the Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad because of lower clock speeds per core.
AMD's fastest chip, the Phenom X4 9950 ($250 CDN), comes second when compared in equivalent systems packing a Core 2 Duo E8500 in dual-core friendly games. The handicap is even more pronounced against the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 ($240) in the few games which are quad-core optimized Unreal Tournament 3, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, Lost Planet 2, etc.
Now thats based on a few years ago. Now onto more up to date chips.
AMD Based review -
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Core-i5-2500K-vs-Phenom-II-X4-975-BE-CPU-Review/1163/16 - Proves nothing really apart from the Intel chip rapes the AMD chip all over, and it can only beat it in a few games by pretty much nothing that is anything to rave about. Not to mention the overclockability of the chip and also the lower temps+less power used, and to top it off integrated graphics on the CPU that **** on anything AMD can throw into a motherboard.
Intel based review -
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=664&Itemid=63 - The reality is that AMD cannot compete just now with intel on a price based war in the mainstreem market, or top end.
When it comes to budget maybe as they have cheap as CPU's (for a reason if you ask me these days) but still cant compete with older Intel core2duo's.
You are clearly a AMD fanboy and cant look past the AMD label... i converted from that way of thinking years ago when intel finally got an idea what they were doing and started making some shockwaves around their new line of core2 products.
They overclock better, clock for clock are faster in nearly every way, now have better GPUs on them than in motherboards haha
So when it all comes down to it... i'll leave it up to the guy buying it to decide, i know what i would do.
Also can you read? At what point did he say he was looking for a CPU for gaming? Playing multiple Runescape = what? gaming?
Lmfao what kind of gaming do you do? The main point in this is to build a pc that can MULTITASK and run multiple sessions without a problem...and ive also taken into account future use e.g gaming which regardless of CPU is used with the Nvidia 250 wont make the slightest bit of difference as the card isnt fast enough to show that, so for any kind of margin to be shown there he would also need to upgrade the GFX which he has stated no interest in at the moment.
Side note - On the bulldozer front, im pretty sure it was an 8core design along the lines but slighty more advanced than Intels current HT technology where they are synthetic cores and there is only actually 8 physical cores? Correct me if im wrong?
And also have a quick look at this.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html