Rimshot
I had AMD machines for years. The one I bought last year has a nice Intel in it. I would not trade it for anything with the same power. 
 
You should call Jim Roseberry at Purrrfect Audio. He would tell you straight.
http://www.studiocat.com/open_cart/

I would love it if AMD were able to kick Intel's butt... Tried to support them for many years.  In my last couple builds I spent time on this issue and all the real DAW experts said there is NO competition... Intel chips, due to their architectural advances, are vastly superior for heavy duty DAW use.  
 
It is not what I wish were the case, as I always have supported the little guy... but unless AMD has just came up with a game changer that I've somehow missed, I will continue using Intel in my next build.
 
If you search for it, there is raw, independent DAW performance data comparing the two... Haven't gone there in a couple years since my current build but it is there...
 
A lot depends on your approach to music.  I can crush my 6 core intel chip with Omnisphere 2 creations by Airwave.  Some synth emulations, like DIVA are huge cpu hits with certain patches...AMD wouldn't be able to play those sounds I'm sure... Then again, if you're doing mostly audio and Kontakt, AMD might be fine...
 
I would love to be wrong.  Don't like supporting monopolies.  If AMD comes up with a game changer, please let me know.  I'm saving for a new master vaster system right now...

BobF

Starise
AMD will  be less expensive . Another thing to consider is getting slightly older generation hardware saves some money, but it doesn't significantly reduce performance in DAW work. This is especially true in the case of Intel. The latest technology will always be more expensive., but even so , if you shop around it won't be significantly more expensive.

I always go a version back from the bleeding edge.  That has always been the best price/performance IME

This ^^ is (at least for me) a very 'sound' plan. The hardware has already been through the test of time and it makes it easier when going into a known territory.
 
I chose the older i7 3770k (when I built my current rig a few years back) as it was already a proven winner in the DAW world. I also looked at AMD at the time as that was what's in my previous build, looked at a lot benchmarks/reviews, and the i7 came out the winner on almost every aspect (not that I'll be maxing out my system, but I like to have a peace of mind to know that it can be pushed easily). My plan was to build a DAW  that would last me at least 4-5 years (hopefully 6-7) staying within my budget and I selected the best possible parts I could afford.
 
I'm sure that AMD has come a long way since then, but it's always good to read benchmark results and pro reviews (gaming machine reviews are pretty good as they like to push their rigs as much as possible (OC'ing etc..) as they do use better hardware than off the shelf stuff). 
 

For what it's worth...
 
I worked for Motorola for 15 years. In that time, I had a chance to meet and interact with a guy by the name of Hector Ruiz. From his Wikipedia entry (in italics; my comments, including why I stuck with Intel all these years, follows):
 
Hector de Jesus Ruiz (born December 25, 1945) is the chairman and CEO of Advanced Nanotechnology Solutions, Inc. and former CEO & executive chairman of semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD).
 
Ruiz is the author of Slingshot: AMD’s Fight To Free An Industry From The Ruthless Grip Of Intel, "a book that memorializes his bet-the-company decision in 2005 to file an antitrust case against its much larger rival." The book also "elaborates on his humble upbringing as well as advice and lessons learned from relatives and teachers."
 
...
 
Ruiz worked at Texas Instruments for six years and Motorola for 22 years, rising to become president of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector before being recruited in 2000 by AMD founder Jerry Sanders to serve as AMD's president and chief operating officer, and to become heir apparent to lead the company upon Sanders' retirement. Ruiz succeeded Sanders in the CEO's seat in 2002, and was named chairman of the board in 2004.
 
Ruiz endorsed the decision to buy ATI, which led to a period of financial reverses. Ruiz survived rumors of his ouster in late 2007. However, he resigned as CEO on July 18, 2008, after AMD reported its seventh consecutive quarterly loss.
 
Ruiz took AMD "off death watch," according to a leading industry analyst. As CEO, Ruiz led AMD to "important technical accomplishments and strides in its competition against Intel," but " he was never able to stanch the company's persistent financial losses." Analyst Rob Enderle gives Ruiz credit for the strategy to spin off the manufacturing operations, "relieving AMD of the cost of running chip plants and allowing more focus on chip design." Ruiz was behind the deal in which an Abu Dhabi government arm funded the new venture.
 
According to the New York Times, "From about 2003 to 2006, A.M.D. offered a line of chips that analysts and many computer makers hailed as superior to Intel’s products. Executives from A.M.D. contended that Intel blunted the adoption of these chips through its financial arrangements."
 
In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission settled a number of anti-competition complaints against Intel. Intel "accepted all the terms of the settlement without admitting that it had committed any anticompetitive acts." In 2009, AMD "settled its own antitrust complaint against Intel in November with Intel agreeing to pay $1.25 billion."
 
In February 2012, the Albany Times Union looked back at the June 2006 announcement by Ruiz and then-current New York Governor George Pataki that AMD and then its spin-off GlobalFoundries "would be building the world's most advanced 'chip fab' on the planet." The news "vault[ed] the Capital Region into the global technology spotlight virtually overnight." Pataki said GlobalFoundries is likely to end up spending $7 billion and hiring 2,000 employees at the plant, with 9,000 additional jobs created as a result.
 
Ruiz was named Chairman of AMD spin-off GlobalFoundries in March 2009. He resigned concurrent with reports that identified Ruiz as the previously unnamed AMD executive who allegedly discussed AMD's plans for the spin-off with an investment manager before it had been publicly disclosed. Ruiz has not been charged with any criminal activity. "There were never any allegations made against me, no one from the government side or the Justice side have ever contacted me," Ruiz told MarketWatch. Ruiz added that he even volunteered to speak with investigators. “They never took me up on it." Ruiz also said, "I strongly believe that I never have done anything wrong or inappropriate.”
 
My comments:
 
When Hector left Motorola and joined AMD as CEO, I gave AMD no chance of succeeding big-time. And for the most part, I was right. Their opportunity to be a company of Intel size and Intel influence came and went a long time ago. Why did I give Hector (and AMD) no chance?
 
Because Hector couldn't/wouldn't make the tough decisions necessary to save Motorola Semi. He was too weak, too nice of a guy.
 
I won't go into the details of how Moto Semi got into the situation of having $9.5bn of production capacity, and annual sales of $4.5bn. Or of the Austin, TX facility where he was headquartered running at only 13% capacity.
 
What I will say is that he couldn't navigate the politics of restructuring. Too many senior executives with too many links to building those production facilities, with each protecting "his" plant. When Motorola started divesting itself, he managed to get annual production capacity down to $5.5bn. But NEVER managed to get rid of that final $1bn. And that was a MAJOR contributing factor to the demise of Moto Semi.
 
I was pulling for Hector. A lot of us liked him. Just not strong enough.
 
And, yeah, it's kind of personal. I had a great job. Six figure income, running the Asian and European Six Sigma consulting practices. All gone. I went from $10/minute to $10/hour.
 
Hard to forgive. Impossible to forget.
 
Intel for me.
 
Plus, I fought the compatibility wars back in the early clone PC days. "DOS ain't done, 'til Lotus don't run." About says it all.
 
I wasted a LOT of time rewriting assembler-level drivers every time a new anything came out (OS update, CPU chip, BIOS update, blah de blah de blah).
 
I don't want to have to think about compatibility ever again.

BobF
 
I always go a version back from the bleeding edge. 

When I first saw this thread, the above was my reaction to it as well. Bleeding edge carries its own risk of unknowns (regardless of brand), so once they have been on the market a while you can get objective comparisons to review before making a decision. I have not used AMD in a while, but not seen anything to deny their viability.
 
 

TheMaartian
For what it's worth...
 
I worked for Motorola for 15 years. In that time, I had a chance to meet and interact with a guy by the name of Hector Ruiz. From his Wikipedia entry (in italics; my comments, including why I stuck with Intel all these years, follows):
 
Hector de Jesus Ruiz (born December 25, 1945) is the chairman and CEO of Advanced Nanotechnology Solutions, Inc. and former CEO & executive chairman of semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD).
.
.
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It's not personal for me in the least.  I just want most power for the least cost.  If Duncan Donuts were to come out with a super high performing, lower cost CPU I would have to consider it 

mettelus

BobF
 
I always go a version back from the bleeding edge. 

When I first saw this thread, the above was my reaction to it as well. Bleeding edge carries its own risk of unknowns (regardless of brand), so once they have been on the market a while you can get objective comparisons to review before making a decision. I have not used AMD in a while, but not seen anything to deny their viability.

Honestly, my current i5 system never breaks a sweat.  It's approaching it's 5th birthday and I want to go to 32G memory, SSD, quad displays, quiet case and such.  I figger it's best to start fresh at this point.  My biggest concern will be the USB parts of the system.  I can't believe how much USB stuff I have accumulated in such a [relatively] short time.

What it seems to come down to between AMD and Intel is the microscopic size of the traces and some of the mother board chip controller implementation  of Intel has pulled ahead of AMD. That said, AMD is known to have some of the best video card chips out there.
 
Smaller cpu connections mean less current= less heat =faster performance. Intel has patented a system to make theirs smaller and and until AMD can come up with a way to compete with that they aren't likely to ever be quite as fast as Intel on comparable chips and their chips will generate more heat. These differences are really small though, so small that in many cases it won't tip the scale for the average home studio user running minimal 24 or less tracks and not getting too radical with soft synths...this is why Sonar has "freeze". 
 
I am not one to look too closely at company profits but I don't think AMD is hurting as the underdog. They offer a product that gets most people there for less. They look really tasty to vendors who build computers for the average "joe". 

One more bang-for-the-buck consideration...
 
The clear consensus in this thread appears to support state-of-the-present, nice, solid, predictable products over bleeding edge.
 
Given that, one additional factoid supporting Intel (and remember, I came from Motorola, VERY proud manufacturer the 6800 and 68000 CPU families) is that Intel are absolutely #1 in the world, no one even comes a close second, in manufacturing scalability.
 
When Intel creates a new chip-building technology (how few nanometers this time?), they design a "mother" plant to build it. They get that plant totally optimized. Then they employ a world-class process for exactly (as possible) duplicating the mother plant (birthing one or more daughters, if you will) when demand warrants. They can get to high yield, high volume shipments, which equals lower cost, faster than the competition.
 
For example, last June 1st, Intel announced Thunderbolt 3 support (they'd been working with Apple on it for quite some time). A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at laptops, and saw an Alienware Win10 device that was shipping with Thunderbolt 3, after announcing support on 27 August.
 
That's fast!
 
That said, AMD's GPUs are excellent. My PC has one, and I'd buy another.