How's this look for a ground up build?

AMD typically do discount CPUs, and up until you get to the top of their series (X6 cores) their cost to effort ratio will probably beat intel. On the other hand, intel cores tend to be incredibly hard wearing and powerful, overclocking on them is often preferred. The core i5 and i7 CPUs have ludicrous overclockability.
Also, it's been said before and will be said again, an intel Core 2 Quad will murder any AMD Phenom II x4.
Intel cores are futureproof typically, the Core 2 Quads are still powerful today and comparable with their new i5 and i7 lines. Getting yourself an i7 extreme will probably last you about 4-6 years.
 
Its all about bang for your buck i have the amd 965 x4 its comparible to the intel i-7 940 but, its 100 dollars cheaper. The higher end intels are the best if you can afford it. Intel overclocks better also.
 
Ok thanks guys that answers my question. Looks like it will be an Intel i7. One more question whats this whole i7 SandyBridge thing?
 
Merged all three thread together since they're all about a new build.
 
Nuke said:
Its all about bang for your buck i have the amd 965 x4 its comparible to the intel i-7 940 but, its 100 dollars cheaper. The higher end intels are the best if you can afford it. Intel overclocks better also.
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Err, no, core i7 and phenom ii x4 are not on the same level.

As for the build, as others have said, sandy bridge is the way to go. 2500k or 2600k are a must for this price for a build. Also, a single card will leave you room to upgrade in the future where as 2 460s is the limit.
 
eurocracy said:
AMD typically do discount CPUs, and up until you get to the top of their series (X6 cores) their cost to effort ratio will probably beat intel. On the other hand, intel cores tend to be incredibly hard wearing and powerful, overclocking on them is often preferred. The core i5 and i7 CPUs have ludicrous overclockability.
Also, it's been said before and will be said again, an intel Core 2 Quad will murder any AMD Phenom II x4.
Intel cores are futureproof typically, the Core 2 Quads are still powerful today and comparable with their new i5 and i7 lines. Getting yourself an i7 extreme will probably last you about 4-6 years.
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what?

they are pretty much even. Phenom is usually considered a bit faster.


edit: i found a source
http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-phenom-ii-x4-920-and-940-review-test/22

Taking about Phenom II 920/940:
guru3d said:
See, when you place things in perspective, the $278 Phenom II X4 940 is here and there getting in close vicinity of that Core i7 920 processor. But let's compare to the Core 2 series for a moment. One thing we can definitely state is that Phenom II's performance is now comparable to the mid- to more high-end Core 2 Quad performance levels.
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(mid high end to them is pretty much everything excluding Extreme editions.)
 
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The problem with this discussions about which platform is the fastest, its like comparing a grand prix race car to a 1/4 mile funny car. Its relative to what your doing at the time. The real deal?

In the real world, you will not be able to tell a difference between an i7 and a Phenom II X6 for 95% of the things you will do with that pc, and for that other 5% not much of a difference. (Something like re-encoding a video that took 12 minutes to encode, the i7 does it 12 secs faster,) lets face it, its not gonna be the difference between you going 0/13 in a game to 10/3.

There is so many other things that influence how a pc runs, memory, memory speed, timings, fsb, network lag, hard drive read/write access times, video rendering, FPS, etc. etc. etc. etc. The cpu matters, but not near as much as we guys with the latest greatest super fast cpu's would like to think. Bottom line, get what you want and can afford. This thing about upgrade path? and future proofing? Its kinda bogus, nobody really upgrades a cpu to get a 5% improvement in some obscure benchmark. Or even a video card for the same results.
Pick one of the cpu's out of this list and go with it.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu-core-i5-2500k-amd-e350,2843-6.html

We just built a gaming rig for my son using the Athlon II x3 3.2 ghz. Threw in a 1 gig 4670 card and 4 gigs of ram and he's tickled pink, gets a solid 100 FPS in CSS so not much else to complain about. Unless he wants to complain that I build him a solid lil rig for less than $400 and used quality parts, we even re-used an old sata 200 gig hard drive, if its a bottleneck, its not noticeable.

BTW- my AMD x6 1055t I'm on right now, is clocked at 3.6 ghz. (factory 2.8) and could go higher if I wanted to up the voltage and deal with the heat/noise issue, but I like my fans running whisper quiet, many guys are getting 4 ghz on these things. Not bad for an x6 core that sells for less than $180.
 
BTW in that article that reflex posted a link to above . This is what stands out to me and why I buy AMD for my own rigs.

The real thing you need to be aware of however is price versus performance. Though that Intel Core i7 920 processor (299 USD) might be priced roughly the same, you are forced to buy a X58 motherboard starting at 250+ USD. Next to that you are forced to purchase DDR3 memory (3GB 150 USD). And that totals up to nearly 700 USD easily.

When we take a nice AMD 790 chipset based motherboard (125 USD), add the Phenom II X4 940 processor (278 USD) and pop in 2 or 4 GB DDR2 (69 USD) we end up at near 475 USD. So that's over 200 USD in your pocket right there, which could mean you could get a nice graphics card for the money you just saved.
 
Side note to what you said crackdaddy.

I just searched DDR3 memory on Newegg that falls around $150; and they're all 8GB (2x4GB) or 12GB (3x4 GB) sticks. A lot of look to be enthusiast memory too.

Searching for DDR3 memory, regardless of price, and sorted by best overall rating. I get the G.Skill Ripjaw Series 4GB (2x2GB) for $50, and Corsair Dominator 6B (3x2GB) for $130. 3rd place is another 4GB (2x2GB) from A-Data for about $48 and fourth is G.Skill Ripjaw again with 8GB (2x4GB) for $85.

P.S. There's 3GB sticks of memory out now for desktops? :-p
 
Snipeye said:
Side note to what you said crackdaddy.

I just searched DDR3 memory on Newegg that falls around $150; and they're all 8GB (2x4GB) or 12GB (3x4 GB) sticks. A lot of look to be enthusiast memory too.

Searching for DDR3 memory, regardless of price, and sorted by best overall rating. I get the G.Skill Ripjaw Series 4GB (2x2GB) for $50, and Corsair Dominator 6B (3x2GB) for $130. 3rd place is another 4GB (2x2GB) from A-Data for about $48 and fourth is G.Skill Ripjaw again with 8GB (2x4GB) for $85.

P.S. There's 3GB sticks of memory out now for desktops? :-p
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Actually, it's because x58 is all triple channel. Out of the ones you mentioned, only the Corsair dominator will work. Of course, the Corsair XMS line at $65 would also work.

And no. It's three 2GB sticks, not two 3GB sticks.
 
a pet rock said:
Actually, it's because x58 is all triple channel. Out of the ones you mentioned, only the Corsair dominator will work. Of course, the Corsair XMS line at $65 would also work.

And no. It's three 2GB sticks, not two 3GB sticks.
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I know it's 3 sticks of 2GB each, rock. Crackdaddy's quote actually says "Next to that you are forced to purchase DDR3 memory (3GB 150 USD)" So the original author didn't proofread what he said.
 
Snipeye said:
I know it's 3 sticks of 2GB each, rock. Crackdaddy's quote actually says "Next to that you are forced to purchase DDR3 memory (3GB 150 USD)" So the original author didn't proofread what he said.
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I see says the blind man.
/facepalm
 
you could have a 3gb dimm theoretically.

12x 256mb IC's would not be unreasonable

Although, i don't think anyone manufactures 3gb dimms
 
Noone has yet to answer this question. WTH is an Intel SandyBridge, and whats so good about it?
 
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