new rig AMD or Intel?

Monster ninja

Monster ninja

Monster ninja

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Joined
8 Apr 2009
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Tavistock,Devon,England
Hi guys i have 2 rigs i am thinking of getting but i dont know whitch?
the rig will be overlclocked,water cooling later on the rig will be used for mostly gaming

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OR

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The AM3 socket will allow you to use the new 6 core CPUs, but after sticking both CPUs @ 4.0Ghz you'l find performance is hindered by your graphics card rather than the CPU.
Edit: sorry mate offered no help, what grpahics card are you going to be running? Also what OS? if your not running 64bit i'd go with the AMD as you'll be wasting the 6Gb of RAM on the Intel
 
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Be better going down the intel route with the i7 for performance. A 920 should overclock nicely and easily be more than suitable for the latest games. As mentioned above though your graphics card will become more of a limiting factor than cpu choice
 
TBH,a motherboard which can do Crossfire at PCI-E 2.0 8X/8X should be fine. All the socket 1156 based motherboards are limited to Crossfire at PCI-E 2.0 8X/8X.

One of these motherboards should do the job:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-366-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1481

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-251-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1782

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-392-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1782

However for gaming if the Core i7 920 based build is a similar price as the Phenom II based build it would probably be worth going for the Core i7 build IMHO if you are overclocking.
 
i7 route,

-Better overclocker,


-Better Motherboard choice,


-The new x6 core AMD processor's are worse than an i7 and that's x6 core, not the phenom x4 you chose,


-Both around the same price because if you get rid of 2GB ram they both are the same price so------------------------------------------------------------
















I7!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Fpr gaming purposes, without overclocking, there's not much in it, but for everything else, the 920 is the superior choice. Even more so once you start overclocking.

The AMD chip is excellent, if you're on a smaller budget, but the 920 is the better choice if you aren't on as tight a budget.
 
Actually for gaming...unless the games can use all 6 cores of the Phenom II X6, it would perform worse than a Phenom II X4 if both are overclocked to same clock speed/frequency. This is because both CPUs got the same amount of shared 6MB L3 Cache...what this means is there's 33% less cache per core for X6 than the X4 (1.5MB per core vs 1MB per core).
 
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Marine-RX179 said:
Actually for gaming...unless the games can use all 6 cores of the Phenom II X6, it [may] perform worse than a Phenom II X4 if both are overclocked to same clock speed/frequency.
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Hey Marine,

I guess it depends on what style of game one plays (FPS vs RTS) although I agree with you in general, however I'm not sure how noticable this would be in Real-World usage and outside of benchmarks? . . . The HexCore was included as one or two folk *may* prefere the extra two cores for £31.58

Marine-RX179 said:
This is because both CPUs got the same amount of shared 6MB L3 Cache...what this means is there's 33% less cache per core for X6 than the X4 (1.5MB per core vs 1MB per core).
Click to expand...

The BenchMarkers will almost certainly care about the amount of Level 3 cache but in the Real-World I'm pretty sure the difference is negligible? . . . if you got some data that illustrates your point I would be interested to read it :)

Personally, I think Level 3 cache is overrated or at least it's effect is exaggerated? . . . I say this because I have been using an Athlon II (Propus) which itself has no Level 3 cache (0MB) and the games still fly?

Anyway, HexCore aside (and keeping things simple) which of these AMD® specs do you think offers Monster ninja the best FPS Bang-For-Buck

amdsystemcoresgpu.jpg
 
Monster ninja said:
saving about 150 over a i7
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Yup it's hard to ignore a saving like that! :D . . . Personally I don't see why any normal person who plays PC games would want to lob the extra on Nehalem when you can get a really nice AMD System-Core inc a gaming class Radeon GPU and still save £25 compared to the most affordable Intel® Core™ i7 System-Core *without* GPU . . .

amdsystemcoresgpuvsi792.jpg


I think you can strike Intel® Core™ i7 from your pick-list mate and replace it with an Intel® Core™ i5 gaming rig . . . I've sorted you out on the AMD® side of things so I'll let someone else spec the Lynnfield for you! :cool:
 
Big.Wayne said:
The BenchMarkers will almost certainly care about the amount of Level 3 cache but in the Real-World I'm pretty sure the difference is negligible? . . . if you got some data that illustrates your point I would be interested to read it :)
Click to expand...

Hey Marine-RX179,

Thanks for posting up some links! . . . I was hoping to see a straight comparison between a Deneb-Quad and a Thuban-Hex clocked at the same speed so the only difference would have been the amount of L3-Cache available to each core . . . I only posted up a Thuban spec in post #9 as it was a viable gaming solution within budget and some RTS gamers may find it yeilds a better result?

As it stands in the links you posted the Deneb has a 6.25% clock speed advantage so it's hard to say what an extra 50% L3-Cache per core brings to the table for Deneb while gaming . . . I feeling the difference is so small we shouldn't ever mention it again! :p

As I said already I think the Deneb Quad makes sense but I'm confident there are heaps of OcUK forum users that would be happy to pay the extra £31.58 for a Thuban-Hex . . . Horses for courses really . . . Personally I'm always gonna take the most affordable option myself! :cool:

marinerx179supportingev.jpg
 
at the moment i am using a GTX260 i was thinking of getting with and then later on in the year when getting a full water cooling set up with 2 5850s, 2 5870s or 1 5870 or a 5970

but i think if i am going to spend all that money it may be a better idea of spending a 100-150 more and getting an i7...

what do you guys think?
 
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Monster ninja said:
what do you guys think?
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I wouldn't base a purchasing decision on peoples opinions . . . it doesn't matter if 1000 people say you should buy Core i7 as this has no bearing on the truth or the facts at all! . . . Consensus-Trance is not a cool thing! :D

The Anandtech bench results show the Intel® Core™ i7 to be not as fast as the Core i5 in all the gaming tests . . . so what is the point in buying a more expensive system that seems to be slower in the tasks you want the new PC for? :confused:



Big.Wayne said:
I think you can strike Intel® Core™ i7 from your pick-list mate and replace it with an Intel® Core™ i5 gaming rig
Click to expand...
 
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Intel's Core i7 actually walks all over AMD's attempts at the hexcore market. Just go i7, you won't regret it :)
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but the i7 will last more gpu upgrades than the AMD option meaning it will take longer before the cpu becomes the bottleneck?
 
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