I will be buying a laptop for my son in june for college. Is AMD vs Intel processors just a matter of preference or is one really better than the other?

*sigh*

You want opinion or fact? If I give you fact, it will probably be outdated in less than 4-8 weeks.

This is one of those topics that people pop into and give the whole "OMG THIS CHIP IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT ONE" but they really don't have the knowledge to back it up. It's one of those questions that brings bandwagoning idiots out of the mist to preach the virtue of their favorite brand.

It's almost like mixing religion and politics :)

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=219275

Read the last post. Heck, you might want to read all of the posts in the thread.

In case you need some more weight to add to my suggestion:

http://myunreal.com/showthread.php?t=76209

There's a thread with similar question, answered by a half dozen geeks who focus primarily on building power rigs for hardcore gaming.