I am upgrading my computer soon and im not to sure what CPU I want, I want a 3rd gen intel CPU. I use my computer for lots of things, it dousent have one particular use, I play games on it and I also do some video editing and other grafical things. I've heard that the i5 CPU's are fine for gaming and that the i7 is more for video rendering but I just wanted to see what this comuity thinks. I want an i7 beacause they are the high end CPU's but I also dont want to spend heaps of money as I have to upgrade my motherboard and RAM at the same time. I am also interested in watercooling but have never done it before, I'm thinking on just going with a i5 and just overclocking it as much as posibule with watercooling. Any tips?
If you aren't going to use h.264 very often, I'd go FX-8350. Typically, the more threads you can throw at video rendering, the better. AMD sockets also have long lives, so you won't have to spend heaps of money if you decide to upgrade down the road.
However, Intel's QuickSync makes their CPU's enticing for those using h.264 codecs often, and their strong single threaded performance makes them great for current games, but since most games are still GPU bound, the savings going AMD (or even an i5 over an i7) would allow for better GPU, which would make much more of an impact in gaming, not to mention AMD can hold it's own in the cutting edge games against even the i7's. Also, GPU acceleration is also a thing for video rendering.
Short answer: CPU's can trade blows, depending on what software you are using, and which technologies that it can utilize (GPU acceleration, QuickSync, weather or not the software is threaded aware, etc), and the balance of other components.
As for more basic tasks, you aren't going to find much of a difference.
Personally id choose an Oc'd i5, but the AMD platform will give you some benefits like slightly lower/equal overall costs and upgradeability, if your up to watercooling though an 8350 could probably give you some hefty overclocks.
An i5 is a great chip, as long as you get the 3570k that is, there are a lot of i5's with a lot of different specs, like only dual core or low power/low speed, etc... that's the problem with Intel, an i5 is not just a midrange consumer grade CPU, the denominations are all over the place. The i7 for 1155 is not a high end CPU, it's a top tier consumer grade CPU (I use them myself though because I think they are powerful enough). The high end CPU range, or "enthusiast class" CPU's, are on the 2011 platform, and start with the i7 as low end enthusiast class CPU's, which are about 15-20% faster in pure processing power than the i7-3770k on the 1155 platform. AMD competes in that segment with the Opteron 16-core CPU, but doesn't compete with the Intel midrange to high end enthusiast class CPU's, which are Xeon E5's etc, which can perform up to 50% faster per CPU in pure processing power than a Core i7-3770k on the 1155 platform. The performance spread in pure processing power is huge, a basic Core i5 on the 1155 platform has about a fifth of the pure processing power of the high end Intel CPU's on the 2011 platform. A Core i5-3570k sits at about half of the processing power of Intel's top CPU.
But that's pure processing power, you know when you need that. For general use, you don't.
For general use, the experience of a Core i5-3570k at stock speed is about that of an AMD FX6300 with a 15% overclock, with some variance, some things will go faster in the Intel, some things will go faster on the AMD. The same is true for the Core i7-3770k and the FX-8350 overclocked, and the Core i5-3570k and the FX-8350 at stock speed.
In terms of value for money, the AMD FX-6300 is very hard to beat, as it's cheap to buy, the mobo doesn't need to be very high spec to overclock with 15-20% (only 95 W TDP), and that makes an FX6300 based PC with the same real-world performance as a Core i5-3570 a good 100 USD cheaper. The FX6300 is the chip that makes the most sense in the AMD range for the moment.
The FX-8350 and Core i5-3570k match pretty well in terms of value. They both cost the same, the mobo on the FX is a bit cheaper than on the i5 for the same features, but an overclocking setup on the i5 is cheaper than on the FX, as you really need a premium mobo and a more extreme cooling solution on the FX-8350 than on the i5, so with a mild overclock, they're both about equal in value, with a higher overclock, the i5 will be better value.
The FX-8350 and Core i7-3770k compared: I think that the Core i7-3770k offers better value, because overclocking the FX-8350 to the performance level of a Core i7-3770 at stock speeds already demands quite an investment in a good mobo and a very good cooling solution, whereas the Core i7-3770 at stock speed works fine with the crappy Intel stock cooler on a basic mobo (that will be a bit cheaper than a basic AMD mobo, but a basic AMD mobo cannot bring the FX8350 to i7 performance level reliably so is out of the question). The i7-3770k costs about 100 USD more than the FX8350, which is about the extra investment in mobo and cooling you need to get the FX-8350 to i7-3770 performance. Anything extra you invest in the i7-3770k (aftermarket cooler, overclocking mobo), will bring more performance than the FX-8350 can ever deliver.
Anyway, just my opinion.