to sum this up quickly and nicely
VARIABLES: theres two key things educated buyers look for in a CPU: price/performance (value), and total performance (speed). (assuming educated buyer realizes that Intel-AMD quality is about the same and therefore not a factor)
STATEMENT A: in the low to mid-range (up to 75% of flagship CPU speed), AMD destroys Intel in price/performance AND usually wins in total performance
STATEMENT B: in the high-mid to high-end range, the price/performance of Intel and AMD is about the same, but Intel usually wins in total performance
EXPLANATION: low, mid, and high range refers to price ranges not to performance ranges. (flagship CPU is a 3.4ghz Intel or 3400+ AMD. 75% of that is around 2.4ghz - 2.6ghz Intels and 2400+ - 2500+ AMDs)
QUALIFIER: my analysis is the gist of the situation, although the actualy ranges (which CPUs are low/mid and which are mid/high) may be tweaked. additionally, yes AMD offers 64bit at the high end and Intel does not (Intel offers Hyperthreading), but Im trying to make a summary/generalization that explains the general state of the educated buyer's market
CONCLUSIONS:
1. most buyers (of those who care to research things like value and speed - which is what i think the original post was referring to), will be in the low to mid range price point. of those, most will realize that AMD is the best option in this category as CPU is generally faster AND cheaper. put another way, most educated buyers on a budget of under $150 will buy AMD
2. high-"mid" to high-end buyers
a. those who only care about the-fastest-processor-period, will probably buy Intel (unless they are looking for 64bit speed too)
b. those who are looking in the high-end will not see any huge advantage in value or speed from AMD, and will then likely default to Intel (the more "respected name")
c. those who are wanting to spend high-end amounts of money (high-end could be considered anything over $100, $150) will probably default to Intel since Intel has a slight lead in overall speed (in 32bit) and Intel has market-share, reputation of quality, reliability etc.
d. even though AMD is just as high quality, and just as reliable as Intel, even if Intel didn't/doesn't have any advantage at high-end, Intel and AMD are going to be relatively close at high-end in terms of value and performance, and at a high-end level, most people are going to default to the more respected brand name when they have the money to do so
~Zippy!