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A decent APU for a Webdev, photo and video desktop?

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  • A decent APU for a Webdev, photo and video desktop?

    Hi dear pts members,

    In short: Which APU (with its mobo and 2-4GB DDR3) to go for a Webdev + occasionnal photo and video desktop computer that should last?
    Have been hanging out a week or so into pts, openbenchmarking and other sources to get some light. As a result, an Intel Sandy/Ivy Core i3/i5 look as a good way to spend my little money. Now I'd lov to hear from more experienced users. 'cause
    a) am not into hardware, and know little about the possible evolutions next years (chipset future, 2D/Video-decoding open-source drivers capabilities, mostly)
    b) Price: AMD comes at ~50-100? less than Intel (AMD A8-3850 or FX-4100 based / Core i3 based) and c) am a long time AMD user, not Intel big fan.

    Please:
    • Would AMD Fusion/Bulldozer fits for the job?
    • Or if going Intel, would going for Sandy or Ivy bridge implies any real differences in the 3 years to come?


    Configurations and Prices:
    - AMD FX 4100 Black Edition + Asus M5A78L-M LX V2 + Kingston 2 x 2GB pc10600 @ 155?
    - Intel? Core? i3 3220 Ivybridge + Gigabyte H61M-DS2 (V 2.X) + Kingston 2 x 2GB pc10600 @ 195?
    - Intel? Core? i3 3220 Ivybridge + MSI B75A-G43 + Kingston 2 x 2GB pc10600 @ 225?
    - Core i5 2400 Sandy Bridge + MSI H61M-P20(G3) + SSD OCZ Agility 3 60 Go + 4 Go DDR3 (1333 Mhz) @ 300?

    More in detail
    Main uses of the computer is: Webdev (with LAMP, Firefox loaded with lots of functions and a few profiles, VirtualBox to load a Windows XP with a couple of browsers), office and heavy internet tasks, photos management, some Video playback and transcoding.
    It is currently under powered by an AMD A3200+ (that can and is occasionaly o/c @2.5GHz) and a Nvidia 6200TC 256MB with Nouveau (have tried proprietary drivers with no visible differences). Also have Geforce 6600GT that makes no real difference on the 1920x1200 screen. Some speed comes from the RAID-0 (2 x Hitachi SataII HDs) and the OS (Arch Linux with e17 / i3 WM)

    Priorities:
    • 2D Graphic performances, i.e. keep a fast responsive desktop whith a bunch of opened GUI apps: 2 Firefox with tabs (of which Gmail, Google Docs/Drive and a video site) + GIMP + OpenOffice + Windows in VirtualBox [1]
    • Video playback with hardware decode support (VA-API), and hardware encode in the near future
    • would love to get GPGPU, as well as Wayland capabilities in the future
    • smooth kernel/driver updates process (i.e. keep the focus on my family and coding / surfing / CRM, rather than on "should I blacklist that new kernel as it may be incompatible with the latest Catalyst driver" [2], or "will that old GeForce 6 series be supported in Nouveau?" [3] etc.
    • Have no special need for 3D and OpenGL Support
    • Low electrical consumption whenever possible (as well as the sound: fanless is best IMHO
    • Price but since this likely is a few years investment, doesn't come first
    • Going AMD if feasible (am not S&M though )



    Notes:
    [1] Ubuntu 12.04 KVM/Xen Virtualization: Intel vs. AMD http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=17200
    [2] The AMD/ATI Bar & Grill on the Arch Linux forum, has 4300 posts https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57084
    [3] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...omp_2011&num=2

    Many pts articles do focuse on 3D/OpenGL/Gaming, e.g.:
    - Intel Graphics Mature Greatly With The Linux Kernel (August 27, 2012, by Michael Larabel)
    - The State Of Open-Source Radeon Driver Features (Michael Larabel on September 02, 2012)
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