I cant really imagine how AMD cpus wouldn't be fine for a DAW. Going Intel only is only really for people that want maximum possible performance, and the difference in most cases is only noticeable if all you do is run benchmarks.

However one overlooked advantage of Intel CPUs other than just performance is their efficiency. They work tremendously well for how much power they use and how little heat they put out at stock speeds, while AMD have needed to crank their top end CPUs to something silly like 1.4v and 5 Ghz just to compete.

Posting simply to correct my posting above, which is wrong.  I have been working on an acoustic guitar/vocals piece when my AMD Phenom II 945 ran out of gas, and even with freezing stuff, still had pops that were beyond annoying.  So I set out to purchase the new FX8300 8 core and stick in my board, but the only place you can buy them right now is out of S Korea on Ebay.  So, given that I'm kind of stuck, I overclocked from 3000 to 3600 and bumped the DRAM speed up from 666 to 800 with the same DRAM timings.  Clicks and pops are gone, and everything runs smooth.