Which to choose (AMD or Intel)

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1 Aug 2003
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I have specced up 2 options, but cannot decide between the 2. Does anyone have any opinions on which is the better choice?

AMD option 1 -

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1090T Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £199.99
(£170.20) £199.99
(£170.20)
Asus Crosshair IV Formula AMD 890FX (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £159.99
(£136.16) £159.99
(£136.16)
Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-850HXUK) £142.99
(£121.69) £142.99
(£121.69)
LiteOn iHBS112 12x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Drive - Black (OEM) £89.99
(£76.59) £89.99
(£76.59)
OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1600LV4GK) £70.49
(£59.99) £140.98
(£119.98)


Intel option 2 -

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £217.36
(£184.99) £217.36
(£184.99)
Asus P6X58D-E Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £149.99
(£127.65) £149.99
(£127.65)
Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-850HXUK) £142.99
(£121.69) £142.99
(£121.69)
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel (CMX6GX3M3A1600C9) £105.74
(£89.99) £105.74
(£89.99)
LiteOn iHBS112 12x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Drive - Black (OEM) £89.99
(£76.59) £89.99
(£76.59)

Thanks for looking :)
 
Intel in my opinion. Faster clock for clock speed.

A faster 4 core is usually better than a slower 6 core (unless you constantly use programs that can utilize 6 cores).

X58 is an excellent chipset to go with (arguably the best at the moment).

Triple channel RAM obviously better than dual channel.
 
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Depends what you are doing, for gaming you don't need either. Also for the AMD build I'd drop the OCZ gold RAM and put some patriot viper in which is on offer this week.
 
You will most definately get mixed opinions here, In my opinion if its for everything, Photoshop, Rendering, Encoding and gaming too. The I7 as it's more punch per core than the Hex. However if the software you're using is hexcore optimized, then the extra 2 cores can help the hex pack some punch of it's own.

If it's a purely gaming machine, Go with a I5 760, It's essentially an I7 without the HT

No doubt you will get told over the course of the thread, that you can save money by going with Hexcore, which is true. But I'm sure you know what you're willing to spend :)
 
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Any idea of the software you'll be using?

If it's serious video rendering and editing, and you're looking for the best speed with regards to rendering time I'd go with your I7 spec, Considering also that you have an extra 2gb of ram with that particular spec, which I'm sure you're aware more RAM the better when working with video editing. The extra 2gb will also be nice in gaming especially under Windows 7.
 
Both Intel and AMD are very good chips but
Intel has extra oomph per core and will perform (slightly) better than AMD
However AMD have an extra two cores which in benchmarks can encode video faster than the 930.

It's all about what you will use the system for most of the time?
 
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