New build options- pointless to go Nehalem instead of Sandybridge? consider AMD?

[mordantmonkey]

So my friend wants a new desktop for primarily video editing, but also gaming (~$150gpu), but needs it pretty urgently for some upcoming project.
At his budget (~$1000 total) it doesn't seem like there is much savings advantage to going with Nehalem, but would there be better stability in going with the older socket with more mature motherboards?
I was considering AMD, but I hear they are dropping their current socket soon. Also, sandybridge price/performance is looking pretty tempting.

Thoughts?

 

[Cogman]

This depends on how much your friend uses the computer for video editing / gaming. If he really does a lot of video editing, I would suggest a sandy bridge build as intel does go faster than AMD when it comes to encoding. If gaming is going to be more important, then getting a cheaper AMD CPU and a stronger graphics card is going to be the ticket.

Either way, make sure you get plenty of ram (4-8gb) and a 64 bit operating system.

 

[ilkhan]

$1k is plenty for an i7-2600[K] build. Do that. Ballpark you'd have $300 for HDD/optical/case/PSU/OS. He'll probably use existing monitor/mouse/KB, otherwise you may need to drop to the i5-2500[K]
s1155 should be around until Haswell. So don't worry about it. Sandy Bridge-E will be on a new socket to replace s1366, but s1155 will serve this guy just fine for years.

 

[mordantmonkey]

Thanks for the input all.

Unfortunately this budget will have to include monitor and multiple hard drives, so i5-2500 is the best I can do. Even then it will be more in the 1200 range (budget IPS panel requested), but I think he'll be ok with that.

Still considering AMD alternative in exchange for more hd space and closer to the budget mark.