Ive always thought that at the same price point (read: not the same advertised clockspeed per se) AMD outperforms Intel. You can get a AMD Phenom 2 Quad core for < $100. Youll have to get another mobo obviously, but I would say do it, especially if you are trying to be budget conscious.
I just built a new budget box as well:
Video -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130718
SSD -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226236
Mobo -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813135345
CPU -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103727
RAM -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226337
Those were the critical pieces, I bought an optical drive, case, and power supply, but the PS replaced the one in my previous build, as I am keeping the Antec kilowatt, and my 2 500 gig drives, as well as my displays. I spent less than $650 on it all. The RAM was a bit of overkill, but as someone earlier referred to, I wanted to play with some ramdisk stuff.