AMD processors are in many way a lot better than Intel processors.
The only difference is that while Intel company is like this huge gorilla that can actually afford to pay heck of a lot for all kinds (negative and positive) publicity, AMD rarely gets into that.
You can understand this better by looking at all the antitrust and other legal issues that Intel indulged in against AMD. In 1991, AMD filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel claiming that they were trying to secure and maintain a monopoly, and one year later, a court ruled against Intel, awarding AMD US$10 million "plus a royalty-free license to any Intel patents used in AMD's own 386-style processor".
In 2009 Intel Corp. was paying Silicon Valley rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. $1.25 billion to squash a legal battle over Intel's sales tactics, a rift that led to antitrust charges against Intel in several countries and was headed toward a costly and nasty trial next year. In February 2009 it was reported that Intel had spent at least US$116 million to date on legal representation on the antitrust suit.
All this indicates that Intel tried to really stifle the technological development not only of AMD but many other companies that they felt were their rivals. Intel is like a black hole which will chew up rival companies and spit put the remains.
Heck, I worked for Intel for about 4.5 years and I know their tactics (I still have their WWID card).
As far as which CPU is the best depends on your applications. Intel has the fastest one on the market, great for extreme gaming. AMD has the best APU (combined CPU and GPU) on the market, great for mobility in laptops. Intel and AMD are about equal in the middle ground of CPU. So that would come down to what your building or buying.