Intel is definitely better in the current generation of laptop processors. That's why once you get to the £500 range, you'll find almost no AMD processors at all. Anything above that is Intel.
They are faster, and take much less power (I know you said you don't care about battery life... but if it's not any more expensive, why not?)
On desktop it's a lot more debatable. AMDs are still quite a bit slower, but they are massively cheaper, and power consumption is not as big of a problem.