Phenom II or I5 for £400 build??

geordiepaul · 9 Oct 2010 at 10:27

Looking to spend about 400 quid and I can't decide whether to go for an I5 or or a Phenom II X6.

So much choice for a mobo, would like SLI as I have 2 7900GTO's, I know they're oldish but I didn't want to replace them straight away. Not playing games much so I don't really need them.

Anyone make any recommendations?

Detrimentum · 9 Oct 2010 at 10:33

If you aren't playing games much, and don't need much power, I don't see why you'd need or want an I5 or X6? Unless you're smashing code. You could just wait and save until you can afford an entire new setup.

geordiepaul · 9 Oct 2010 at 10:40

Don't need a full setup really just didn't wanna lose the SLI, need raid too.
I need a beefy machine as I do "smash code"

and I'll probably play a few games at some point.

geordiepaul · 9 Oct 2010 at 10:49

This is what I'm thinking...
CPU..
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-339-IN
Mobo..
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-225-GI
Mem..
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-288-CS

Best mobo I can find with SATA 6gb and USB3

Brummies · 9 Oct 2010 at 11:06

are you going to overclock?

Jony27 · 9 Oct 2010 at 11:46

if you want to SLI get the p7p55d evo for £137, can run either sli or crossfire at 8x/8x

geordiepaul · 9 Oct 2010 at 12:29

Brummies said:
are you going to overclock?

Yeah, not insanely though.

geordiepaul · 9 Oct 2010 at 12:30

Jony27 said:
if you want to SLI get the p7p55d evo for £137, can run either sli or crossfire at 8x/8x

Not got USB3.0 or SATA 6GB which I'd like.

Jony27 · 9 Oct 2010 at 12:52

oh ok my bad.
how about the gigabyte ga-p55a-ud4 for £10 more than the asus evo.

geordiepaul · 9 Oct 2010 at 13:19

Jony27 said:
oh ok my bad.
how about the gigabyte ga-p55a-ud4 for £10 more than the asus evo.

Yeah I was thinking that one too.
So definitely i5 over Phenom X6? That's what I can't decide.

jakesnake · 9 Oct 2010 at 13:43

the 955 isnt a mile away from the i5 so if you want to save yourself a few pounds you could look at this.

geordiepaul · 9 Oct 2010 at 14:00

I was also think that after reading some comparison between the X4 and the X6 cpu. Would this Mobo be a better bet?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-251-GI

jakesnake · 9 Oct 2010 at 14:07

Great board for the price, hard to beat.
MSI 870A Fuzion AMD 770 - £99.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-135-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1782

Full Review:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3494/msi_870a_fuzion_amd_770_motherboard/index.html

VFM Addict · 9 Oct 2010 at 14:33

Like Jakesnake's build. Leaves a about £100 from your £400 budget you set so you could grab a pair of Samsung F3's for the raid you want too.

Cheers,
vfm

Marine-RX179 · 9 Oct 2010 at 17:59

I recall from a bit-tech review that Fuzion of mixing ATI with Nvidia cards gave very poor results comparion of actual Crossfire/SLI...not sure how dual Nvidia or dual ATI card on Fuzion will perform comparing to Crossfire/SLI...

Edited because of noticing it was a Fuzion board.

jakesnake · 9 Oct 2010 at 18:01

Marine-RX179 said:
Have to bare in mind Crossfire motherboard don't support SLI though. If You want SLI, I think you need to go socket 1156.

that MSI board has a Lucid chip. it can crossfire/sli or 1 of each.

Marine-RX179 · 9 Oct 2010 at 18:12

jakesnake said:
it can crossfire/sli or 1 of each.

The question is if it is really Crossfire/SLI, or if Fuzion use a different methodology for running the dual-cards set up.

Edited: Just found the bit-tech review. The Fuzion board actually use something called "Hydra" instead of Crossfire/SLI...and Hydra actually deliver lesser performance:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/01/08/msi-big-bang-fusion-lucid-hydra-arrives/5

jakesnake · 9 Oct 2010 at 19:07

we r not talking a performance drop to Atari level here lol. so the 16x slots will perform like 8x slots (probably not even that bad) because of hydra. you have to remember we are talking about a £99.99 board here. the fact that you can run 2 ati or nvidia cards in itself is a major win for "Value" alongside usb/sata 3. wots the problem?

Jony27 · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:03

if he wants to crossfire get a proper crossfire motherboard but if he wants to sli, i guess thats the only option(fuzion)

Marine-RX179 · 9 Oct 2010 at 23:00

Jony27 said:
if he wants to crossfire get a proper crossfire motherboard but if he wants to sli, i guess thats the only option(fuzion)

Considering the huge performance hit on the (Fuzion) Hydra, with it only delivering as low as only 25%~60% minimum frame rate of Crossfire/SLI in most situations (refer to the bit-tech link in my previous post), I don't think any sensible person should in invest dual-card on a Fuzion board. If anyone want to run dual-card properly, they should invest on a proper Crossfire/SLI board.

Take the PCI-E 2.0 x4's worst case example from Tomshardware- the CODMW2:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pcie-geforce-gtx-480-x16-x8-x4,2696-5.html
the GTX480 at x4 is only delivering just above 50% of the frame rate of x16...and other games that were tested in that same review all lost less than 50% frame rate on x4.

And then we take a look at (Fuzion) Hydra's worst case example from bit-tech- the MODMW:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/01/08/msi-big-bang-fusion-lucid-hydra-arrives/5
The Hydra 5770 is delivering only 30-40% of Crossfire 5770's frame rate; and the Hydra GTX260 is only delivering 32-39% of GTX260SLI's frame rate.
And in Batman: Arkham Asylum, the CF5770 deliver 50 minimum fps, whereas the Hydra 5770 only deliver minimum 14fps!

If it proves anything, it is that Hydra's dual-card performance is mostly slower than, and very rarely as fast as Crossfire/SLI on PCI-E 2.0 x4. Hydra's performance comparion to Crossfire/SLI is a joke, it is as simple as that...