Torn between 2 CPU's, which one to get?

Acid_death69 · 3 Jan 2011 at 19:15

Hey
I need to update majority of my rig because my AMD Athlon 6400+ BE, won't cut it for some of the newer games. So I need a new mother board, ram and CPU. I've decided on what mobo and what ram and amount im getting but im torn between two CPU's. This build will purely be for gaming.
The two CPU's are:
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8 Ghz
Or
Intel Core i7 950 3.06 Ghz
Im trying to build for the future so i don't have to upgrade for a fair amount of time. I know i7 is more expensive than the phenom but is it worth the money and also will it be a respectable CPU for time to come?

MumboJumbo · 3 Jan 2011 at 19:16

*points at all the talk about sandy bridge*

RickST · 3 Jan 2011 at 19:22

8igdave said:
*points at all the talk about sandy bridge*

This pretty much, no point building a relatively high end machine now.

Either wait for i7 price drops or get sandybridge

Cookeh · 3 Jan 2011 at 19:29

RickST said:
This pretty much, no point building a relatively high end machine now.

Either wait for i7 price drops or get sandybridge

You do realise that SB release on the 9th is only the mainstream and low end stuff?

High end SB isn't being released until around the same time as AM3+, so i7/X6 is still the way to go for high-end applications.

OP, it depends on your uses - what will you be doing with the PC? And whats your budget?

EDIT: Just noticed for gaming.

I would personally get an i7 out of those two choices, as it games are currently struggling to utilise more than 2 or 3 cores atm. In a hexacore, that means up to 4 cores can be sat there doing nothing. Believe it or not, that results in lower fps.

Outside those two choices, I would get a Phenom II X4, and a cheap motherboard and wait to see what AM3+ brings in terms of performance. IN the mean time a Phenom II X4, combined with 4gig of ram anda decent graphics card is a potent gaming machine, and there isn't much at all it won't be able to handle.

Acid_death69 · 3 Jan 2011 at 19:33

The machine is purely for gaming. Budget is £400-500 and that's including money for mobo and ram.

Cookeh · 3 Jan 2011 at 19:39

Acid_death69 said:
The machine is purely for gaming. Budget is £400-500 and that's including money for mobo and ram.

EDIT: Im blind, sorry.

Right, lemme see something

Cookeh · 3 Jan 2011 at 19:48

Right, what graphics card do you have/what graphics card budget do you have? Because games rely far more on gfx than cpu

For i7, I would be looking at this:

Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £219.98
(£187.22) £219.98

Asus X58 Sabertooth TUF Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £149.99
(£127.65) £149.99

Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel (CMX6GX3M3A1600C9) £73.99
(£62.97) £73.99

Sub Total : £377.84
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £67.78
Total : £455.12

Phenom II X4 would look like this:

Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 AMD 890FX (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £134.98
(£114.88) £134.98

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £111.61
(£94.99) £111.61

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £42.99
(£36.59) £42.99

Sub Total : £246.46
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.00
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £44.71
Total : £300.17

Whichever platform you choose, (and if you're looking at multiple gfx card set-ups then it kind of has to be i7) you'll need a decent cooler so you can overclock them (both should get to around 4GHz).

I would get this:
Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler

Total : £34.99

Acid_death69 · 3 Jan 2011 at 19:57

Lol cheers for you're help bud. Ive got my graphics card already, GTX 480

That AMD bundle is looking mighty tasty for the price.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 3 Jan 2011 at 20:05

What existing motherboard does the OP have??

Acid_death69 · 3 Jan 2011 at 20:11

Asus crosshair 590 SLI, can't really upgrade my CPU to anything better than what ive got. There are quad cores that will work on my mobo but they aren't very good.

-fedexer- · 3 Jan 2011 at 20:15

I have the intel CPU and i certainly can't fault it! I'd suggest intel > amd, in all fairness.. yes AMD is cheaper, but I think intel performs better

clocka · 3 Jan 2011 at 20:18

get the core i7 2600K cpu which will be around £230 at some places, the motherboards will be much cheaper than the x58 boards, we don't know their prices yet, a decent H67 motherboard with USB3 etc will likely be £90 ish, so £320 + £40 ish for 4GB DDR3 ram so around £360 total for a computer that will last you a very long time unlike the AMD which will be incredibly slow in comparison.

Cookeh · 3 Jan 2011 at 20:18

-fedexer- said:
I have the intel CPU and i certainly can't fault it! I'd suggest intel > amd, in all fairness.. yes AMD is cheaper, but I think intel performs better

Wrong. Very very wrong.

Depends completely on your uses, and what you're comparing.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 3 Jan 2011 at 20:22

If you are running a single card setup I would get the following:

Phenom II X4 955BE ~ £112

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-244-AM

Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 ~ £80

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-283-GI&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=1782

This has USB3.0 and SATA3.0 too!

4GB 1600MHZ DDR3 ~ £43

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-203-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=

The total comes to around £235. The OP can also get free postage from OcUK too.

The other alternative is to look at a Core i5 2400 which should be around £140 to £150 at launch.

Cookeh · 3 Jan 2011 at 20:23

clocka said:
get the core i7 2600K cpu which will be around £230 at some places, the motherboards will be much cheaper than the x58 boards, we don't know their prices yet, a decent H67 motherboard with USB3 etc will likely be £90 ish, so £320 + £40 ish for 4GB DDR3 ram so around £360 total for a computer that will last you a very long time unlike the AMD which will be incredibly slow in comparison.

Where do you guys get this crap? Really?

Phenom II X4 is much cheaper than Intel's current sockets. Therefore, how can you possibly state that top of the line next gen stuff from Intel could possibly be as cheap as this.

Phenom II X4 is very capable, and being AM3 offers good upgrade routes. Similarly, there isn't a thing that it can't handle atm - and it will be a long time before anything exists that it can't.

Go troll somewhere else! :rolleyes:

Cookeh · 3 Jan 2011 at 20:27

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
If you are running a single card setup I would get the following:

Phenom II X4 955BE ~ £112

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-244-AM

Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 ~ £80

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-283-GI&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=1782

This has USB3.0 and SATA3.0 too!

4GB 1600MHZ DDR3 ~ £43

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-203-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=

The total comes to around £235. The OP can also get free postage from OcUK too.

The other alternative is to look at a Core i5 2400 which should be around £140 to £150 at launch.

+1 to the spec. Motherboard I specified is more for multiple gpu uses

You won't get anything better for the price, and it offers brilliant performance.

clocka · 3 Jan 2011 at 20:31

Cookeh said:
Where do you guys get this crap? Really?

Phenom II X4 is much cheaper than Intel's current sockets. Therefore, how can you possibly state that top of the line next gen stuff from Intel could possibly be as cheap as this.

Phenom II X4 is very capable, and being AM3 offers good upgrade routes. Similarly, there isn't a thing that it can't handle atm - and it will be a long time before anything exists that it can't.

Go troll somewhere else!

which part of my post did i state that sandy bridge is cheaper than AMD? please highlight the line!

As for there being nothing AM3 can't handle, you could say the same about Core 2 duo that works perfectly fine too.

so i think you should be the one who should troll somewhere else, i said sandy bridge is way faster than Phenom X4 and will last him a very long time.

Ade74 · 3 Jan 2011 at 20:32

Cookeh said:
Where do you guys get this crap? Really?

Phenom II X4 is much cheaper than Intel's current sockets. Therefore, how can you possibly state that top of the line next gen stuff from Intel could possibly be as cheap as this.

Phenom II X4 is very capable, and being AM3 offers good upgrade routes. Similarly, there isn't a thing that it can't handle atm - and it will be a long time before anything exists that it can't.

Go troll somewhere else!

He's getting the info from the multiple reviews that came out today i would assume!! and the fact that that some sites already have the new stuff for sale

njm106 · 3 Jan 2011 at 21:19

Cookeh said:
You do realise that SB release on the 9th is only the mainstream and low end stuff?

High end SB isn't being released until around the same time as AM3+, so i7/X6 is still the way to go for high-end applications.

Looking at some of the reviews the SB i7 2600K beats the 980X even in some heavy multi-threaded apps :eek:

If I was looking at buying a new cpu/mobo etc now I would deffo wait for the SB release if nothing else AMD will be forced to slash their prices and the same will surely apply to old intel stock so wait a few weeks and reap the rewards.

Acid_death69 · 4 Jan 2011 at 01:31

Cookeh said:
+1 to the spec. Motherboard I specified is more for multiple gpu uses
You won't get anything better for the price, and it offers brilliant performance.

Cheers for your help fella and everyone else. Chances are because of the cost i'll be going with AMD... again lol. I don't think i'll need to change my heatsink either, i believe it's compatible with AM3