intel's core 2 has placed itself into the market for the fastest cpu to date (even for games) and will be the forfront for some time to come AMD64 is the cheapest for gaming but you may be lowering your windows performance slightly just for the privilidge of a few extra fps. < thats why i stick with intel, i dont put down windows performance for a few extra fps (most people choose AMD because it is better for gaming and intel acts as a bottlekneck for the GPU) but who needs 100fps on a 75hz tft... (vertical sync is god!)
Core 2 Duo's are all dual core. Right now, no games really take advantage of multiple cores. There's a few that can get a minor improvement, but nothing where I'd spend extra money over a single core just for gaming. Until Core 2 came out, AMD had the performance crown. However, the Core 2 goes with the more performance per clock cycle and has the best performance available. If you're building or buying a new system for gaming, Core 2 is what you want.
