Way back in 2003 when AMD released the Athlon64 3200+ processor, they pushed Intel into a bit of a corner. Clocked at just 2.0GHz this new processor was able to defeat much higher clocked Pentium 4 processors while also costing consumers a great deal less. The next 3 years could not have gone by quicker for Intel, as the Athlon64 continued to reap havoc. However, finally 3 years later, support arrived in the form of the Core 2 Duo, which is now returning the favour for AMD.

The Athlon64 has continued to fight hard against the Core 2 Duo series, but ultimately it has pulled up short. The new Phenom X4 series has not exactly been a great success for AMD, offering poor efficiency and average performance. Recently, in an effort to sell more inventory, AMD released the triple-core Phenom X3 series which was designed to go head to head with the more affordable Core 2 Duo processors.

Never before have we had both companies releasing such powerful processors at such bargain basement prices. While AMD may be loosing the performance war, they still have a number of very impressive processors retailing at very affordable prices. Their flagship quad-core processor, the AMD Phenom X4 9850 'Black Edition', costs just $235 US, while the still potent AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ can be had for just $148 US. Also, for $148 US there is the AMD Phenom X3 8450 processor, featuring three cores each clocked at 2.1GHz with their own 512KB L2 cache.

Those are some really good deals there, and because AMD has been unable to attack Intel in the high-end market, they are really taking it to them in this lower-end segment. However, Intel is still in a very good position to fight back with their Core 2 Duo technology, which recently made the move to a 45nm design process. The Core 2 Duo family is already made up of a number of different processor series, but the most recent addition is possibly their most impressive. Recently Intel launched the E7000 product family based on the Wolfdale architecture with a trimmed down 3MB L2 cache.

The E7000 series has been made special for a few reasons, first and foremost it uses the 45nm design, and secondly it costs next to nothing when compared to processors from the Core 2 Duo E8000 and Phenom X4 series. The first processor to be released is known as the Core 2 Duo E7200 and it comes clocked at 2.53GHz with a price tag of just $135 US. This makes the new dual-core E7200 slightly cheaper than the triple-core 8450, but the question now is which of these two processors presents consumers with the best value option?