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

I know. I've owned all of those machines. I will NOT argue with you when you say AMD gives you more bang for your buck. That's always been the case and the nr. 1 AMD policy. But I look further than that.

I've never had a Cyrix processor go bad on me. Granted, I only started using them when they introduced the 6x86 "L" series

I did. About eight years ago I went through the same experience as you did : I ALSO used to be the only tech at a local computer shop during the 486, 5x86, K5, K6, and Athlon Slot A era. I've built A LOT of systems based on AMD K5, Cyrix CPU's (then built by IBM). I also made a lot of pentium systems. (I also remember the times of the "shaved" CPU's)

The performance of both AMD and Cyrix wasn't bad, as long as you stayed with programs mainly running integer operations. If you wanted to use programs heavy on the floating points (read games à la quake) those Cpu's just were pure crap. AMD and Cyrix had a problem in this respect : their market was the low budget high school/college student. Well this is the exact market that plays A LOT of games. And this is where those CPU's crapped out. (remember, this is in the pre-3D card era). I had a lot of people returning to me after having bought an AMD or a Cyrix asking me if I could do something about the bad games performance ("I've only bought this PC this week, it's brand new and still to slow to play this game"). Sure there was : upgrade to Intel.
AMD only got it right when they released the Athlon. By then Cyrix wasn't a player anymore.

And please don't talk to me about IDT's winchip's. I also built a few systems on those. Four words : low cost, low performance.

I am sure there is more to the Athlon than just the Nexgen's 6x86 core

Sure there is. Only the Athlon's floating point unit was built based on Nexgens' designs. The rest was mainly AMD stuff.

I use a QuietPC cooler on the machine I'm currently writing this on...

Ah! Sure, NOW, you're running one of those, but back then those kinds of coolers didn't exist! Back then you were obligated to put a high performace cooler (LOUD!) on and AMD and an even higher performance cooler (EVEN LOUDER! ) on a Cyrix. And you'll understand from my first post that I'm somewhat alergic to background noise. I will agree with you that nowadays with those quiet coolers this isn't such a valid point anymore.

A question though : you've REMOVED the fan on your radeon and continue to work with it like that ? Doesn't the card get too hot and lock up? (I wouln't know since I've never owned ATI, only Matrox and now nVidia)

Perhaps you don't remeber the Intel 430TX chipset.....Also, no Intel Socket7 chipset supported AGP. Thanks Intel

I do remember the TX chipset, but you have to keep things into perspective. In those days, 64Mb of RAM was A LOT. There weren't many people that used that much. Also, in those days Intel was the only CPU manufacturer that came out with innovating new technologies. After Intels new technology had sweated it out first, then AMD came along with a new CPU that was comparable in results but cheaper. Intel was ALWAYS the pioneer. Kudos to them for that. ( I agree that nowadays this has changed somewhat and Intel and AMD are both equally innovating, especially considering the different paths each manufacturer is taking with their Hammer and Itanium CPU's). In those days, Intel pioneered (or was about to) the Pentium II. Now, I've never agreed with them on the Slot1 thing, but I can understand how they wanted to push it. If people were to take it it had to have more props that just "the new CPU technology", especially since "new" CPU tecyhnology isn't that competitive at first (the P4 is an excellent example of this). So bring in AGP and USB. (USB was also on pentium boards, but now the connectors were actually there thanks to the ATX form factor). Intel would have shot itself in the foot if they would have built socket 7 systems with AGP too.
OK so the HX didn't have an AGP slot. At first, AGP offered little more performance than PCI anyway. Like with all new technologies, it's performance grew in time. And by the time it really made a difference, most of use were using PII with LX or PIII with BX chipset anyway.

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

Well, I have, a lot. I'm not just saying this. I'm saying this because I've experienced this. If you haven't,.... well, let's agree to disagree then.

If you do go AMD...

Erm...no thanks...

If you decide to go Intel, I guess the little-green-men TV commercials got to you

They've never broadcasted those there in Belgium. I do remember them from seeing them on the internet. So I guess I'm not that indoctrinated after all...

No, seriously, I base my judgement on my own experiences. I've put AMD and Intel systems together for years. The only systems that I can remember that crapped out constantly were the AMD's. That did it for me then : no AMD in my own pc. I'm willing to agree that this has changed a lot with the Athlon nowadays, but still I don't want them.
Stubborn as I am. So njah!