I personally like Intel's performance

HAHA this one is sure to start riots on here. the first three can run windows, IBM POWER cannot. The IBM POWER6 is extremely powerful, buuuut intel has chips that come close to that performance level, yet cost a buttload less(A POWER6 machine can start at over $10k...easy) IBM POWER is generally reserved for servers, and supercomputer markets only using a varient of the UNIX OS(IBM AIX). Now POWERpc, as what was used in the Apple computers are POWER cores, but are designed for the consumer market and are not POWER chips. but in their heyday POWERpc g3,g4,g5, packed per clock cycle so much more data than a x86 counterpart. In fact the Powermac g4 almost was unable to be shipped overseas because the system's performance was capable of supercomputer levels(any computer or device capable of performing over 1 gflop of performance at that time)The POWERpc chips still hold their own today(I have a 466 mhz g3....it runs gr8!) ok now via.....via...is very much VERY low budget, low heat, low power, and small form factor friendly. Their performance levels are no where near their intel/amd rivals(tho via is mostly embedded, and for things like netbooks, and cellphones, and chipsets. So I wouldnt really look at VIA, they had a good desktop chip way back when made by Cyrix(via bought them). when it boils down to Intel vs AMD, the clear winner is Intel. Intel now offers ultra high performing chips, at prices not much more than amd(amd is cheaper)Amd tends to be a little more on the powersaving side(except for notebooks....where they need it DUUH!) In fact AMD's newest Phenom II's cannot keep pace with the old core 2's. the original phenom quadcores got whipped by Intel dual cores.....hmmmmmmmm. So bottom line and conclusion, If you want to run Windoze, your best bet is Intel. If UNIX, or LINUX is your flavor, POWER architecture is hard to beat or match clock to clock(tho a raging higher cost)