AMD FX3850 For budget editing build?

Question

Hello,
First off I would like to thank the dedicated users who have shared there knowlage over the years.  Its taken quite awhile but ive sifted through alot of it over the last couple weeks with the intent on chosing parts for a new build.  I'm wondering what peoples thoughts are on the knew piledriver achitecture in the FX 8350 and 8320 and if it has a place at the center of a budget workstation.  
A little bit more about my needs.
At the moment I'm a student and under a vary tight budget.  Photo and video editing has long been a hoby and only recently turned more serious/semi-professional (aka Friends pay for odd jobs).  Im happy to say that this is ramping up.  I personal plans to take things farther and more work then my current tools can handle (aka asus gaming laptop).  This comming year I will be doing a series of web videos in conjuntion with a website I will be managing.  A more personal project will be starting a documentry on the local action sports scene.  So broken down more briefly.
- I will by no means be editing 24/7.  Though quick response and smothe performance will be required.
- I will be shooting mostly with Panasonic GH2/3  The Hacked footage is high bitrate AVCHD
This isn't my first PC build.  Though the first workstation.  I will overclock.
It seems everyone is a proponent of Intell.  I can see why they firmly sit on top of the performance heap.  The money you pay to get to the top of said pile grows exponetionly the closer you get there. The reason i'm even considering AMD is they fall into my price range with a chip that seems well tailored to pp.  well its benchmarked at exporting certain formats well. anyway.  So why not go with what is tried and ture? say a i7 2600, it could be good for a budget build. Well that chip is almost 100 bucks more then the amd's current price.  If you upgrade one part of your system you either forgo balance and end up wasting your investment, or you upgrade more and the price grows. That said I havn't tested it, I dont know if my FX build would be balanced.
As much as I want a cheap system I dont want somthing that wont hanndle the work  load, especialy as its unlikely to change for at least a few years.
so with that in regard I have not left the i7 3770k and 3820 out either.  With Haswell comming it would be nice to be able to upgrade, though realisticly that would be several years out bacause the build should need it untill then.
The amd build orrigaly hit about 1k when i priced it out.  I thought the i7 would run close to 2k so i discounted it as an option. then I saw this.
http://www.pacifier.com/~jtsmith/ADOBE.HTM
i7 3770 for $1200. for sure!  However further inspection shows some of thoes components are well, cheap.  exactly what there supposed  to be .  So do I go with a AMD build for 1k.  Or maybe upgrade to multiple HDD 32gb ram,  SSD with the AMD chip and a 660ti for 12-1300.  Or would it be better to do the budget i7 system for about the same price.  Or, what I maybe leaning to more now, a i7 with a good board, 16gb ram(should be enough), and bare minimum HDD as AVCHD dosn't seem to as r/w dependent as it is CPU processing power.
So for thoes that want the shrot version and avoid my long winded speach.  here are my questions.
AMD FX 3850:  is it enough to edit AVCHD single cam smothly?  If an intel chip is prefered even in the same class, say an i5 or i7 2600 why?
is AVCHD format video CPU depended enough to need, say  a i7 3770 and will it bottleneck on the drives without a fast or multi drive setup? am I better off with the AMD chip and multiple harddrives?

Answer 1

Bill,
Thanks for your reply and PPBM. The way I understand it "pile driver" supports thoes instructions.  Is it that it may not perform said instructoins as efficently givving ground to the intel chips?
With your i7 2600 machine do you have a multi hard drive setup or raid arary.   Certainly a fully optomized systeem, especialy one with a i7, would have raid.  but because of the compressed nature of AVCHD would single drives suffice?
Hacked Gh2 footage is often low GOP at bitrates over 150 mb/s  Though I may have answered my own question here.  Would a bitrate higher then a drives R/W rate be a problem requireing raid for smoothe editing?
@Harm,
Again thanks for PPBM.  I enjoyed your build log and helpful forum posts.  Putting things in lamens terms really sped up the learning curve.  I have spent some time on PPBM.  What gives me pause about the FX results is there are only 2.  It's certainly not enough data.  With other chips, like the 3770k or 2600, you can see results from 1000+ to top 100.  This surly shows setup and configuration are more important then just the chip.  Could this be true with the AMD chips?
Would a less then optimal set up hold their score back to 500, just as with some of the i7's?
The builds seem all over the place.  even the i7's over 500: some have 8gigs of ram, some have 16, some have raid, and some dont.  i dont know quite what to make of it.
My thinking is that I would be better off with an Optimized AMD setup then a not optimized i7 priced similarly, with bottlenecks left and right.  However if AVCHD stresses drives less and the CPU more, I certainly see merrit to a i7 without a raid setup for better performance, then amd at a similar cost. With better upgrade options as well and the peace of mind knowing that if its done right a solid score is achiveable.  with amd its unkown it seems.  Thats a big one. 
With PPBM not spicificly testing AVCHD performance.  What are key areas for good performance with that codec?
If I can wait I certainly will and will likely build a system based on parts you have outlined in other posts, in the intermediate or warrior catagory.  Or see what Haswell has to offer next year: at least price drops for existing chips.