Very nice review.

I must agree with you, if you are an enthusiast who likes to overclock, pentium is the best choice for now.

I personally have an entry level system of the E5200 and very happy with it.

Overclocked to 4ghz 24/7 stable, passed linx x50

its a great CPU, even beat my friend's E8600 when clocked @ 3.75ghz @ crysis

For HTPC AMD's tend to be more common than Intel. This is largely because it can use the 780G / 790GX Integrated Graphics which can do decent HD decoding. In addition many AMD HTPC user go for the energy efficient editions e.g 5050e which has a TDP of 45W (I think). The difference in pricing with the normal editions is quite small. I believe the overclocking on the energy efficient versions is slightly better.

If you are overclocking then the Intel is by far the leader but if you are going for a budget system, not overclocking and using Integrated Graphics then for most users the differences are small between the two platforms and it would largely come down to cost.

I am not an AMD 'fan boy' I run a E7200 in my rig and a 5050e in SWIMBO's.

ima amd fanboy and i feel sorry for them.. nice review tho.

The lack of competition for I7 is the worst think could happened. You can see the outragous price those processors have. Only if AND new solutions will put some decent performance, or give a shock like K7 was back then, who blow out Pentium 4...Somehow I doubt it.