So I'm still in the market for a new PC, and since my budget is relatively tight, I've decided to go AMD. (An EE model, though, so it remains on-par power-wise with the Core 2 Duos)

Do you think it's worth waiting for K10 and the "Phenom" processors? Or should I just buy now and possibly upgrade later?

Also, what's L3 cache? I noticed it on the Wikipedia article for K10, but I haven't seen that before.

Of course, if Intel can drop the price of a Core 2 Duo by a good 40$, this is mostly a moot post, because I'd totally jump ship to Intel. Sure, they're anti-competitive, they're fighting the OLPC, and well it's Intel, but they did open-source their video drivers, and have the better CPUs. But I have faith in AMD. But not ATI.

Well,

Cheers,
Joro.

There's always something better around the corner.That way you can go and wait forever - besides if you are on a tight budget it wont help to wait for K10.
If they stink you don't want it and if they bitchslap Intel prices will be sky high.

L3 cache is a memory cache where instructions get cached in the CPU.Generally the bigger the faster the CPU is in real world use although not a lot faster.
Cache used to be more important for Intel than for AMD - dunno if that is still valid.

L1 cache is the cache on the processor die.
L2 is the cache on the motherboard.

AMD once before integrated this L2 cache in the processor chip (AMD K6-III); not 100% sure if it was integrated on the die, but I think it was. The cache on the motherboard then became the L3 cache.

If your budget is relatively tight, then don't wait for the latest and greatest... it usually isn't the best bang for the buck.

Hate to do that but I don't think this is correct.There is no cache on the mobo.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2987

That's not my fault I have a ASUS P5A motherboard for the K5/6, and it has on board cache. The K6-III has integrated L2 cache, so there is my L3 cache.

I'll be.....

Just when you think you saw it all - sorry bout that.