AMD P2 or Intel i7 help

[Avengedkc OC]

Ok so ive always been an AMD fan and was looking at a new build my first build actually but what makes these i7's so good ? i dont intend to OC yet and intel i7 lower speeds so how are they better

 

[cmndr_andi]

The performance of the top phenom 2 is on par with the intel core 2 quad q9550 in pretty much all benchmarks. i7 is faster clock-for-clock, uses Triple channel memory so has MUCH larger memory bandwidth, uses hyperthreading (so it has 8 processing cores) and is generally 1337. If you have the money to buy a top-end phenom 2 system then you can offord an i7, and you will get much greater processing power from the intel.

That all said, it depends what you use it for. If its only for games, the benefit of i7 isn't quite as great. In such a case a cheaper quad, or even a dual core would be fine, as long as you invest heavily in a good graphics card.

 

[phytal]

Yeah Cmdr andi said it all. He's good

 

[EvilOne]

Games machine with single or double GPU - AMD
Games machine with tri/quad SLI/Xfire - I7 (may require overclock to minimize cpu botleneck)
Aplications/video encoding/server related - I7

Things like triple chanel memory and hypterthreading wont effect your gaming, if your after a gaming rig.

 

[ecat]

And don't forget the cute little tri-cores. I'm seriously considering swapping my 955 out and my 720 back in, it clocks to the same speed, pulls less power from the mains and nothing I do on a daily bases requires the 4th core :shrug:

 

[MachIN3]

The performance of the top phenom 2 is on par with the intel core 2 quad q9550 in pretty much all benchmarks. i7 is faster clock-for-clock, uses Triple channel memory so has MUCH larger memory bandwidth, uses hyperthreading (so it has 8 processing cores) and is generally 1337. If you have the money to buy a top-end phenom 2 system then you can offord an i7, and you will get much greater processing power from the intel.

That all said, it depends what you use it for. If its only for games, the benefit of i7 isn't quite as great. In such a case a cheaper quad, or even a dual core would be fine, as long as you invest heavily in a good graphics card.

This guy nailed it, take his advice.

 

[Ivemetjesus]

Exactly. I7 is not what you should buy if you game. My suggestion is unless you do any encoding get a 720 BE tri-core, a decent am3 motherboard and 4 gb of ddr3 then you can afford a faster graphics card or maybe even another graphics card.