I can see what you mean on high end and it could put you into the $1000 range just for the CPU, but if you look below there are four AMD 8-core processors that can provide more for the dollar. Even the FX-8320 at $169.99 puts a lot of power for less than an INTEL chip.
I am still considering both processors, but the main point will be finding a motherboard that is mostly compatible. I've read that many boards have issues with the on board Storage, NIC and other driver compatibility.
AMD
FX-8350 AM3+ $199.99
FX 8350 8 Cores, 4.0/ 4.2 GHz, L2/L3 Cache 8MB/8MB
FX-8150 AM3+ $189.99
FX 8150 8 Cores, 3.6/ 4.2 GHz, L2/L3 Cache 8MB/8MB
FX-8320 AM3+ $169.99
FX 8320 8 Cores, 3.5/ 4.0 GHz, L2/L3 Cache 8MB/8MB
FX-8120 AM3+ $149.99
FX 8350 8 Cores, 3.1/ 3.4 GHz, L2/L3 Cache 8MB/8MB
INTEL
Intel Core i7 2700K Boxed Processor 2nd Generation Sandy Bridge CPU
i7-2700K 4 Cores, 3.5/ 3.9 GHz, 8MB Intel Smart cache
$195.00