Swings and roundabouts.

Really depends which AMD processor you are looking at.

About long lasting, how can you tell until they have been around for a while? By the time you know if a proc will last along time, its old. Just recently, intel delivered its sandy bridge chipsets and had to recall them for sata issues. The CPU's were probably OK but they were meant to run with the chipsets. Sometimes a new review that loves a particular brand or version of a CPU or Motherboard comes to early to find issues. It's only later on things go wrong. As CPU's become faster, hotter and smaller, there has to be a giving point where failures and lifespan become an issue. That's probably right about NOW!

Unfortunately both Intel and AMD make it harder to compare them. Some AMDS will be better than some iSeries chips and vice versa.

But unless you have a need for extra power, just about any machine on the market today will satisfy your needs.