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Higher Clock speed or more cores?

madindehead said:
Buy the Q8200 and overclock it with a good aftermarket cooler. Best of both worlds then. High speed, and more cores ^^
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Not really an option. Wont be my computer, and the motherboard I've chosen for him wont be a brilliant overclocker. I don't want to have to sort any stability issues from an overclock. Also a decent after-market cooler will add another £20.
 
Higher clocks is the way to go in most games. However, there are a few games (GTA4, ARMA2 spring to mind) that seriously benefit from having 3 or more cores, this is likely to become more prevalent in gaming, so having a triple/quad core is generally a better option if you want to play ALL games really well for a while to come.

However, the chips you picked are not the best choices for a gaming machine. First, the Q8200 is rather low clocked (2.33GHz) and doesn't overclock well, so it is not an ideal gaming chip and rather expensive (with a decent graphics card you will be CPU limited, which is bad). The E7500 is a better bet, but when you see triple and quad core AMD chips at the same price bracket, it isn't a particularly good deal. IMHO get an X3 720BE or the X4 630. Or if you feel the need to stick with intel, go the whole hog and get an i5 750 +p55 board.
 
cmndr_andi said:
Higher clocks is the way to go in most games. However, there are a few games (GTA4, ARMA2 spring to mind) that seriously benefit from having 3 or more cores, this is likely to become more prevalent in gaming, so having a triple/quad core is generally a better option if you want to play ALL games really well for a while to come.

However, the chips you picked are not the best choices for a gaming machine. First, the Q8200 is rather low clocked (2.33GHz) and doesn't overclock well, so it is not an ideal gaming chip and rather expensive (with a decent graphics card you will be CPU limited, which is bad). The E7500 is a better bet, but when you see triple and quad core AMD chips at the same price bracket, it isn't a particularly good deal. IMHO get an X3 720BE or the X4 630. Or if you feel the need to stick with intel, go the whole hog and get an i5 750 +p55 board.
Click to expand...

He already said he has a s775 motherboard, and the rig is not for him. Can't you pick up a q6600?
 
Oh right, didn't see that when I posted. In that case, either get the e7500 (good chip and will run most games brilliantly), or increase the budget and get the Q9450 which is currently on offer for £130. The Q9450 is a much faster chip than the Q8200 both in terms of raw clockspeed, but it is also faster clock-for-clock. All in all, a general winner if you are stuck with s775.
 
Oh no, this is being built from scratch. I just assumed that Intel was still all over AMD.

Budget is around £450 for a reasonable gaming machine. I'd started out with Intel due to familiarity. I made a switch to Intel from AMD when Intel were all over AMD. Around the P35 motherboard time. As I stated above I just assumed it was still the case of AMD being vastly inferior.

I'm quite happy to build my housemate an AMD machine, just want to get him best value for money.

I didn't realise DX11 cards were out next week so a recommended motherboard to go with one of those X4 chips would be nice. One with on-board graphics to tie him over for a couple of weeks preferable. He needs this computer pretty rapidly.
 
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Ah, good to hear. Yes, AMD has come a long way since the Core 2 domination and their budget to mid level chips are fantastic. The X4 looks like a great chip, but I just read a review and it doesn't seem to fare as well as the X3 in gaming. If I were you, go for the X3 720BE with this board and your housemate will have a great gaming machine.

The integrated graphics on that motherboard is an HD 4200 and is perfectly adequate to do general desktop stuff, HD video and even some light gaming. Should be a decent stop-gap while your housemate waits for the new graphics cards to arrive.
 
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