I'm glad the guys at Tom's finally did this. It was especially nice to see the comparisons to the SBM machines. But most of all, I'm glad you did benches not only on the CPUs overclocked, but at stock speeds as well, as I'm not one to overclock.(It is not that I don't see the benefit of overclocking, it is just that I don't have the time nor the inclination to overclock anymore as I get older).
I think that the budget AMD CPUs, while not having the best performance, did not do to bad at stock speeds. I like the comparisons between the E5200 and the 7750 BE the most. The E5200 clearly came out ahead, but it was close with the 7750 BE coming in at 97% average overall. That, for stock users, is not that big of a spread and I think that it would be a toss up. Going by that, the 7850 BE would be the same or slightly better then the E5200 (stock). But clearly, when you introduce overclocking into the equation, the E5200 leaps ahead, which will definitively answer the question of which to get if the person buying is an overclocker.
I'm one of the people who responded to the $600 SBM article that wanted to see AMD and I'm glad that this article came out.
Thanks again for listening to your readers!