Did you check out the Tom's Hardware Page URL Rakasan posted?
That comparison tells you just about everything you need to know about Intel vs AMD for gaming. Read the whole thing.
A better chart in that report for BF2 players is this one because Farcry is also a DirectX 9 game:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/ … age29.htmlI have always been an Intel fan, and was shocked to see how big a lead AMD has in performance. AMD manages to get better performance at a lower clock speed, and consumes less power so it generates less heat. All of this while using less expensive DDR memory, not DDR2.
Tom's has great Video card reviews too.
Like mpsmith said, CPU is not as critical a resource in BF2 as memory and GPU (video card processor). If you budget is limited, you should favor getting 2GB of RAM and a high-end video card over a faster CPU.
One other thing to keep in mind is that AMD is expected to announce a new processor line with a new socket soon so they can use DDR2 memory and go even faster - if you can wait.