Until a couple of years ago AMD really wasn't an option.

AMD has always been a great option. They took the 386 (up to 40MHz) and 486 (up to 120 and 133MHz which beat Pentium 75) further than Intel. I built MANY machines based on the K5. K5 was a mad-cheap and great alternative to Pentium. When K6 came out, It was able to keep up with Pentium II for much cheaper. And, it used Socket7 so even motherboards were cheap and plentiful. AMD rules.

only thing worse then was Cyrix

I've never had a Cyrix processor go bad on me. Granted, I only started using them when they introduced the 6x86 "L" series. The "L" stood for low voltage. They always worked, were cheap, and that's all that really matters when all you customers ever do is chat on AOL.

After VIA bought Cyrix and IDT's WinChip division, the C3 was born. I have built a few machines based on it. Two of them had no fan. Just a heatsink. Check out this video.

Nexgen's technology which resulted in the Athlon, the performance thing has been fixed.

I owned a Nexgen 5x86 90. That thing blew. I am sure there is more to the Athlon than just the Nexgen's 6x86 core.

Their CPU's still consume too much power resulting in VERY hot chips that require a more efficient (read LOUDER) cooler.

Not true. I use a QuietPC cooler on the machine I'm currently writing this on. With the case on, the cooler is silent. My video card is an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon. The fan on that card sucks and I took it off months ago (no more noise ). Since this machine is currently Micro-ATX, there is very little room in the case. Even so, I have an Athlon XP 1600, 512MB DDR memory, 7200RPM hard drive, all PCI and AGP slots populated, both 5 1/4" bays populated, and NOT A SINGLE CASE FAN. The only fan other than the CPU fan is the power sullpy fan and it's quiet enough not to bother me at all. You can see some pics of this mahcine here. It is rock solid, running Win2k, and flys like a mofo.

Also, I like intel chipsets. I've never had a problem with a peripheral that I wanted to install in a motherboard with an intel chipset. I can't say the same for VIA, SIS or ALI. I hate those brands even more than AMD.

Perhaps you don't remeber the Intel 430TX chipset. Intel's "flagship" chipset that could only cache 64MB of RAM. This was so dispicable, people continued using the "outdated" and discontinued HX that could cache 512MB. This discrepency allowed VIA, SiS, and later ALi to start dominating the Pentium/Socket7 chipset business by offering better and cheaper chipsets. Granted, Intel chip and Intel chipset is a great combo, but after the TX came out I was using VIA's offering with Intel, AMD, and Cyrix chips. Also, no Intel Socket7 chipset supported AGP. Thanks Intel.

As for peripheral problems, I can agree with you to an extent on that. This is mainly a VIA issue with the Sound Blaster Live. Even then, it's the peripheral manufacturers problem with only testing on Intel chipsets and straying from standards. IIRC the SB Live/VIA problem was mainly the fault of Creative Labs. I've never heard of problems with SiS chipsets that weren't board specific. ALi chipsets are usually very good especially the current ALi Magik1.

A friend of mine has his own computer shop. I spend a lot of time there, so I know how much AMD cpu's gone bad he sees.

When I was a dumb kid (I worked nearly for free after school), I used to be the only tech at a local computer shop during the 486, 5x86, K5, K6, and Athlon Slot A era. AMD chips never came back. We had a few Pentium machines come to us with burnt out chips, but this wasn't Intel's fault. There was a period when the P166 was very expensive and the fly-by-night system builders were using shaved P90 chips and overclocking them to 166 and putting a Cyrix cooler (their coolers were huge and deafening at the time) on them. After a few months of getting slower, the chips finally gave in and died. Lucky for us, as the high-priced honest shop, we would then fit their machine with the proper Intel chip or talk them into a K5. Again, this is not Intel's fault.

I will say it again. I have never had to throw out a burnt AMD chip. I've never even had dead Cyrix for that matter.

Intel has NEVER let me down.

Their stuff works, but it is a horrible value. My website spmicro.com runs on a Pentium Pro 200. The only reason for that is I paid $1000 for that chip and I'll be damned if I don't get my money out of it. $1000 for a chip!?!?!?! WHAT WAS I THINKING!?!?!? Seriously, that is the only Intel machine I use daily (aside from the empeg ). I build all of the machines at my office and most are Durons, and before that they were K6's. I trust AMD so much that our NT 4 server runs an Athlon 1.2GHz. That thing runs for about a month before needing a reboot. And, the reboot is due to NT's instability, not the Athlon. This machine also uses a VIA chipset. Our RedHat Linux webserver runs an Athlon XP 1600 with an AMD chipset. Aside from the occasional hack , that thing never goes down.

So until intel tosses something on the market that is really utter crap, I'll stay loyal to the brand.

P4 looks like crap to me. Overpriced crap that is. The original Celeron was also a huge blunder.

but at least when I'm buying an Intel CPU, I know that I'm working with decent quality material.

Most of Intel's CPUs are manufactured by other companies overseas such as Samsung. There are guidelines they must follow, but they can deviate somewhat.

AMD's chips are primarily made in their factory in Dresden Germany. AMD's factory under their control.

AMD gets my money. And, my machine is still quiet as hell. If you do go AMD, get a board based on the SiS 735 chipset or VIA KT333. Both these chipsets can be run without fans. But, make sure your mobo manufacturer chooses to exclude the fan.

If you decide to go Intel, I guess the little-green-men TV commercials got to you. God help us all.