ExtremeTech takes on a daunting task in this CPU review on performance versus cost.  It covers quite a few AMD and Intel chips, and puts them to work on a lot of different benchmarks.  There are even some odd surprises, like the 3700+.
“When you build a PC, you’re often making a series of delicate trade-offs. After all, most of us have budget limits on any PC we build, and making the most of that budget is key. Last spring, we took a look at graphics hardware price/performance, in order to find the sweet spot for gamers. Trying to determine the sweet spot where price and performance cross over for CPUs is a more daunting task. For one thing, the applications mix is far more complicated. People use office applications, create content for web sites and games, encode video for building DVDs, and play games. Each application mix may have different issues when it comes to determining the optimum price/performance ratio.”

Here are some more Processor articles from around the web:

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