Amd FX-4170

I bought this in October, for $124.00 at my local computer store and really enjoyed using it. At the 5Ghz I was able to get it on my first attempt at overclocking, since the last processor and computer I would have used was back in 1996 on a K6 which had no overclocking capabilities, it ran faster than my i7-2640M laptop at both compiling and gaming(based on Dev C++ and Borderlands2). The major downer about this CPU was it's single threaded application performance(pre 5Ghz) and the fact that AMD had created, once again a hardware feature that was not going to be fully utilized by the current software. Also they still haven't fixed the problem that AMD processors have with heat, on to top it off they give you this little dinky stock cooler and void your warranty if you don't use it.

Overall if you are going for a cheap build anything under the $200 price tag Intel has on their i5, then going Intel would be a waste of money, especially considering you may luck out and hit 5.1Ghz like I did and you will be smoking that i3 or Pentium in the same price range.