I doubt this is still true, but back in the day, if you took the heatsink off of a running computer playing a video game, and you used an Intel processor, it would just freeze up. If you did the same with an AMD, it would catch on fire. I believe this was because of the lack of features the AMD had to prevent this. It is most likely not a problem now, but funny nonetheless.
Anyway, both AMD and Intel processors are good. Intel, like already posted, markets their speeds with Floating Point. I believe AMD is there to keep Intel on the ball.
I am currently using AMD, so I'm not saying it is bad, but I've got an Intel ready to be put together.