there is no denying that the core2duo processor is powerful but that comes at a price. At the same price, there is an AMD processor that performs well in line with c2d, not beating it along with a powerful motherboard. As I said earlier, for an entry level c2d's price, I can get entry level X2 along with a motherboard that has 256Mb shared graphics memory etc. For 10k, I can get a powerful AMD processor, motherboard with wifi out, multimedia remote, powerful nvidia chipset etc. This easily negates that extra performance given by C2D. X2 is also very good in overclocking. Why not buy an X2 with powerful motherboard and then overclock it to match it's performace with c2d in the price range. I think this will be more feasible.