a few reasons why i dont want to do that:
A) i live in canada, the processor alone would cost me $100 more
B) motherboards for the i7 are expensive
C) triple channel RAM is more expensive than dual channel RAM
D) im a high school student so i dont have that much money to spend
To be honest if you're looking for a budget build, you shouldn't be considering Intel in the first place.
Intel builds perform barely better (if it all) in some applications than AMD builds.
True, they do perform equally or better, but that calls into question Price vs. Performance.
Unless you are an Intel fanboy or need maximum performance, an AMD build will provide you with equal or unnoticeably different performance for much cheaper.
Then you go back to the motherboards being more expensive with an i7; well they're even cheaper with an AMD build.
You can easily get a better AMD build for your money than attempting to build a budget intel build, as you can get higher AMD parts for equal money.
Same as NVidia vs ATI, its all about Price vs. Performance when you are on a budget.
An Intel CPU will perform up to 50% better than it's AMD counterpart when it comes to gaming. The i5 doesn't really lack in gaming either.
Actually, gaming is the area that Intel and AMD builds have been shown to be the closest, with AMD builds often beating Intel builds.
Its
outside of gaming that Intel builds tend to keep a lead over AMD.
And 50%? That is just a ridiculously ludicrous statement.