Intel vs. AMD

For computer enthusiasts, there's been an age-old debate that dates back to the days when we were forced to carry our bits and bytes by hand, uphill both ways, in the freezing cold and feed them manually into a 9600 Baud modem.
The argument starts like this: Which is better – AMD or Intel? From there you can bet opinions differ strongly.
The real answer has changed over the years, depending on who you talk to and depending on what you want from your computer. It almost always comes down to which CPU offers the best performance for the kind of work you do, and how well the computer will stand up over the coming months.
Processors are certainly the most critical part of a computer, but they hardly work alone. It's nearly impossible to legitimately answer the AMD vs. Intel question without heavily considering the different platforms supporting each CPU, and by extension the features you get with one path and lose by not adopting its nemesis.