I am shopping around for a dual-core system and having been pouring
through reviews and benchmarks of the AMD and Intel dual-core
processors. I intend on putting 2GB RAM on the system. I need a
high-performing system to primarily do the following:

* Dual-boot into Linux 2.6 kernel (perhaps SuSE) and Windows XP

* Perform numerical computing on very large arrays (> 1 million
elements), including matrices, of floating-point values for the
following: time-series analysis, digital signal and image processing,
and simulation work

* Image processing for 2D arrays of integers; analysis work with JPEG-2000

* For use of apps such as Matlab and Mathematica

So far I have not come down to choosing AMD or Intel for what I want to
do, because many reviews give top scores to one or another.

Thus, from the experience of others, is their a particular processor I
should lean towards that'll greatly benefit me? I hardly do much gaming
or recreational photo or audio work.

--john