AMD vs INTEL confused

Hey,  I recentely bought home studio 7 xl and got the upgrade for x1e but i cannot load xi yet my current setup is:
    P4 3.2 Ghz;  1 Gb ram; 320 gb hdd for os and software and 1 tb hdd for audio; nivida 6200 agp; pioneer dvd-rw; vs-20
 
I've been doing research on amd and intel chips.  I am going to be upgrading 2 pcs. the one for recording and my everyday game use.
The one for recording has first priority so i didnt want to just get amd cause the price.  Everything i've looked at was mixed reviews and benchmarks they were both good but in different areas.  I can't aford $300 on just the cpu so i know i7 is out.  i heard more cores were good for gaming but i5's where better for apps.  is x1 under the apps catagory or would this benefit from the 6core instead of 4?
 
I'm updating the mobo and ram,  as well as getting a new graphics card cause agp is dead.  Gonna keep the rest as its all good as far as i know. Thinking of getting another hdd for samples read 3 drives is best option.  Funds determine all.  I wanna put money where the cpu is first then go from there.

I don't have a dual core the p4 I have is single.  I thought i would need at least a dual.  My mobo only goes up to 2 gb so I defenitely need to up that cause I would like at least 4 gbs and room for more later on.  Thanks for the input.

old psu is only 400w was thinking that wasnt gonna be enough.  The one drive is sata but the other is ide wasnt thinking on that.   Whats the deal with these ssd's.  Would that be a good way to go for the os drive? I've read that the transfer rates are slower though.  I'll have to check into the 760.  Thanks. 

If you combine the cost of upgrading 2 computers you'll end up having 2 average systems. But if you'll invest in one great machine... you could easily have a dual boot.

Agreed.  Unless you either need to run 2 PCs at the same time, or have PCs in 2 different rooms, then one single kick-ass dual-boot machine seems like a much better option.

just make sure you buy a dedicated HDD cooler for each hard disc. they cost 6$ each and they keep the temeratures in amazing levels all day long!

A hard drive mounted in a properly ventilated case should not suffer overheating problems without any special cooling. Heat as a common cause of hard drive failure is largely a hype. Not just my opinion:

http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

Yeah you gotta watch those sites, as tempting as it may be.  If I go the dual boot way I'm a little confussed again.  The only info I was able to pull up was for dual bootin 2 seperate OS's.  Can you dual boot one OS so that its a normal online pc then a second for sonar.  I'm thinkin I have to install win on 2 seperate drives.  Won't both OS's recognize all the drives and have access to them? 
I found a little package deal on newegg for an anthlon ii x4 mobo and ram for $200 I was thinking of just using that for the everyday pc then getting the core i5 sandy bridge for the other.  I'm thinking I would rather keep them seperate.  Guess I just wanna say something is mine after dealing with these kids and my  women who still insists that the garage is not man space.  Thanks again guys I appriciate all the input.

So if I wanted to run win 7 x64 on both I would need to get 2 seperate liscenes?  I got a bad copy of xp and the pc with vista came with no disc fior reinstall. It has a seperate partition with reformat and install, which i've used before and it restarts pc to factory.  My little here and a little there idea is also fueled by the fact that I'm not recording 30+tracks.  I'm not even gonna have more than 5 audio tracks.  I'm doing guitar parts and I'll be sending my buddy the files and he"ll add vocals and bot of us will play with midi for drums and possible strings oand other extras.  But maybe a total of 5-6 tracks playing back at once.  I dont like how intel is not "upgradeable" due to socket changes but this new amd bulldozer is not gonna be compatable with am3 either so that doesnt matter anymore.It would be nice if there were a set thing to go with.  Other than the cpu war is there any dif with the chipsets?  I'm sure it's just newer is beter but I don't know much about what the cipsets do so I cant go by my newer is beter.  I know intel needs intel chipsets and same for amd, they need there own.  There is a lot involved with doing this on the pc that siab seems like an easier out but you can do SO much more on pc considering all the soft synths out there. 
I don't need a top of the line machine.  I use vs-20 for interface.  I'm looking to use x1ess as daw.  it's gonna be 1 track recording at a time and adding layers with soft synth.  i seen benchmarks for sandy bridge higher than phenom and just about the same price.  thats why i thought the i5'd be good.  I'm gonna put a pc together for daw solo the ncompare price of badass 1 pc for both.  The gaming pc was missleading  I only play wow so its not demanding on anything i got a gts250 for vid.  cpu on that pc is a amd 64 4000+.  Just need that a little higher for everyday use.  Gonna check out the two options.(i may be thinking to much into this, if so someone smack me.

I need to keep diggin online like I've been.  I've gotten lots of usefulk info from here and learned new things to search and dif options that there are. and once again thank you all for input.