Gaming rig AMD or Intel cpu?

[Caribbean Geek]

While Phenom II X4 can offer similar gaming performance as faster Intel processors, going to an AM3 or Intel 1156 socket doesn't make much sense currently, with new processors coming around the corner requiring new motherboard, I would wait for an upgrade, or buy an Q9550 (Doesn't matter if its new or used on ebay), is a nice and powerful gaming chip with a huge 12MB of L2 cache, which once is overclocked mildly, can match an i7 in terms of gaming performance with ease, is a better buy than the hot running Q6600 which is getting long in the tooth at stock speed.

 

[aigomorla]

If i go for the x4 955 or I5-760, which one will handle CF better?

Thanks in advance.

Very tough question as i dont know who would win in this situation.

I know AMD has had great bandwith to gpu cards since spider days.

However the new X58 is a monster when it comes to scaling video cards.

The P55, would fall slightly below a X58.


My advice is if you see yourself scaling cards, get an intel P55 or X58 setup, because you wont be limited to just xfire or sli on it.

 

[heyheybooboo]

While Phenom II X4 can offer similar gaming performance as faster Intel processors, going to an AM3 or Intel 1156 socket doesn't make much sense currently, with new processors coming around the corner requiring new motherboard, I would wait for an upgrade, or buy an Q9550 (Doesn't matter if its new or used on ebay), is a nice and powerful gaming chip with a huge 12MB of L2 cache, which once is overclocked mildly, can match an i7 in terms of gaming performance with ease, is a better buy than the hot running Q6600 which is getting long in the tooth at stock speed.

All of his AM3 components (PhII 955be & AData RAMs) can be moved to an AM3+ motherboard because of the backward compatibility. He would then have drop-in BD Zambezi when the budget permits.

For that simple reason I would invest in a 'Full Retail' copy of Win7 64-bit (just to keep things nice and legal).

He could probably save a few bucks with the Corsair HX 750w to offset the additional cost of the 'retail' OS ...




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[Justesting]

Hello again,

Chosen the Noctua NH-D14, this will help me to get 4GHz quietly.

As i said on my previous post, i don't see how the next CPU's will improve by a large marging over their old counterparts, as far as gaming performance goes.
At sunday i am going to order the parts i stated before, when i'll have everything sorted in my PC Case i'll let you know if it was worth it .

Have fun, and thanks!

 

[richierich1212]

Sandy Bridge is at least four months away, no?

 

[aigomorla]

Sandy Bridge is at least four months away, no?

i think we might get it in b4 xmas.

i think..

Or apple will get it by xmas.

 

[richierich1212]

i think we might get it in b4 xmas.

i think..

Or apple will get it by xmas.

Which segment, lower buget processors, or high enthusiast processors? Or low, mid, high? lol.

 

[electroju]

Hello again,

Chosen the Noctua NH-D14, this will help me to get 4GHz quietly.

As i said on my previous post, i don't see how the next CPU's will improve by a large marging over their old counterparts, as far as gaming performance goes.
At sunday i am going to order the parts i stated before, when i'll have everything sorted in my PC Case i'll let you know if it was worth it .

Have fun, and thanks!

That heat sink is OK, but there are better heat sinks than this.

It is hard to compared your over clocked E6750 set at 3.4 GHz. If you compared the E6750 to Phenom II X4 955 at stock speeds. The Phenom X4 965 is about four times faster. I think your over clocked E6750 at 3.4 GHz will be about two times slower than the AMD Pnenom II X4 955. If you compare the i5-760 to AMD Phenom II X4 955, it will be about the same. This is just the processor performance. Gaming requires the whole system for performance. You should upgrade your video card before upgrading the processor.

The video card you should get is a GeForce GT 480. DirectX 10 and 11 is just eye candy. DirectX 11 includes the ability to use the video card for processing data.

I suggest go for an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T instead of AMD Phenom II X4 955 to make your setup last until AMD makes AM3+ obsolete. It will not be too long for AM3+ to be obsolete because dual channel memory is not enough for Bulldozer core.

 

[mrcmtl]

That heat sink is OK, but there are better heat sinks than this.

It is hard to compared your over clocked E6750 set at 3.4 GHz. If you compared the E6750 to Phenom II X4 955 at stock speeds. The Phenom X4 965 is about four times faster. I think your over clocked E6750 at 3.4 GHz will be about two times slower than the AMD Pnenom II X4 955. If you compare the i5-760 to AMD Phenom II X4 955, it will be about the same. This is just the processor performance. Gaming requires the whole system for performance. You should upgrade your video card before upgrading the processor.

The video card you should get is a GeForce GT 480. DirectX 10 and 11 is just eye candy. DirectX 11 includes the ability to use the video card for processing data.

I suggest go for an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T instead of AMD Phenom II X4 955 to make your setup last until AMD makes AM3+ obsolete. It will not be too long for AM3+ to be obsolete because dual channel memory is not enough for Bulldozer core.

Hell no.
GTX 480? Never in his case.
1090T? Not worth it in his case.

 

[bryanW1995]

With your current CPU, video card and resolution I'm not sure you will see as much improvement right now as you are hoping for.

The AMD 890FX / GX support SATA 6Gbps and USB 3 while some of the Intel P55 boards support both SLI and Crossfire.

You are right, the P55 chipset does seem to be a little crippled in regards to XFire / SLI setups. Socket 1156 is also time line limited for only another 6 months before Socket 1155 comes out with Sandy Bridge CPU's.

Socket AM3 boards will support the first Bulldozer CPU's late next year so its really the most futureproof platform for the time being.

am3 will NOT support bulldozer. BD will require am3+ mobos. however, am3+ mobos will support am3 cpus.

@ op, for xfire or sli you should either get 1366 or am3, don't go with an 1155 mobo.

 

[Arkaign]

I'm in the camp of :

Sell cpu, get Q6600/Q6700/Q9550 and OC to ~3.4ghz. That's gonna game about as well as anything available, and doesn't require swapping mobos/ram/etc.

Sell 4870, get GTX460 or 5850 depending on cost.

Bam, done for quite a while at 1680x1050.

 

[dorky82]

keep your 4870 and wait for next gen card.
I went 550be @ 3.9 to athlon II X4 635 @3.6
I know its cheap @ss quad core but raised my avg fps in BFBC2 15fps(in eyefinity!)

 

[Justesting]

Hello everyone,

Some new thoughts, i am dumping the NH-D14, chose Cooler Master Aquagate Max (water CPU cooling kit - 600W) kinda cheap here, and i'll try to OC the x4 955BE as much as i can, will go for the x4 965BE if i can get a tray one.

About the graphic card, i can get another HD4870 for as low as 120$, HD4870 CF is better and way cheaper for me than HD5850.

Can't wait for sunday to order all those parts -.-.

 

[kirbster1966]

I have to agree that the cheapest route is a used quad for your current motherboard. Based on your comment that your cpu is @ 100% and your vid card is @ only 50-70% load.
A core 2 quad @ 3.6 or so will run any game out there with ease.
If you are planning on going for a whole new setup, i would still get a 5850 over crossfired 4870. I am running a 5850 and an AMD 1055T and it is super smooth in BFBC2.
I had crossfired 5750's before that and i couldnt get over the huge swings in framerate. A single GPU is still better than equivalent crossfired cards, a 5850 will be as fast and much smoother running than CF 4870's. Sell your 4870 and put in the extra 100 for a used 5850.
But at your resolution i would try just a cpu swap first. See how thet 4870 works alone.
I bet you wil be just fine.

 

[bryanW1995]

holy lurker batman!

 

[Caribbean Geek]

The HD 4870 CF is usuall slightly faster than the single HD 5870, but a single GPU has predictable performance with no microstuttering, I've been happy with my current CF setup, but Microstuttering seems to be an issue in some scenarios, something that V-Sync and Triple Buffering fixes, but from an HD 4870, the best upgrade should be at least an GTX 470 or HD 5870, the HD 5850 isn't much faster than the HD 4870 1GB.

 

[Justesting]

@Caribbean Geek
microstuttering no longer effect the HD4870 CF.

I'll just drop that, credit goes to Sanpsa from xtremesystems:

Originally Posted by Sanpsa
Ok, I finished testing with R700, 4870 CF, 3870 X2 and GeForce 9800 GX2 (Single and SLI mode) and recorded frametimes in Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 demo:

The worst case scenario happened with 3870 X2 in Crysis when every other frame was rendered after ~21,5 ms and every other after ~49,5 ms. However in UT3 demo 3870 X2 provided stable ~11,5 - 12,6 ms rendering times between the frames.

R700 seems to be very strong and it rendered every frame after ~21,6 - 22,1 ms in Crysis and ~11,5 - 11,9 ms in UT3.

Also 4870 CF provided equally good results compared to R700 and rendered every frame after ~21,3 - 21,7 ms in Crysis and ~11,2 - 12,1 ms in UT3.

GeForce 9800 GX2 showed alot more variation in rendering times and frames were rendered after ~21,9 - 25,1 ms in Crysis and ~7,4 - 11,5 ms in UT3.

PLEASE NOTE!

These results are measured and analyzed with simple tools including Fraps and Excel. In my own conclusion, it seems that microstuttering depends on game engine and if we leave 3870 X2 in Crysis out from the results it looks like NVIDIA's SLI (9800 GX2) is suffering more from microstuttering than AMD's CrossFire.

Can't spend this much money on the HD5870, i might add another HD4870 since it's cheap and will beef my gamin experience.

 

[Kuzi]

I suggest go for an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T instead of AMD Phenom II X4 955 to make your setup last until AMD makes AM3+ obsolete. It will not be too long for AM3+ to be obsolete because dual channel memory is not enough for Bulldozer core.

Bulldozer reportedly will support 1833MHz DDR3 memory, even if running at only dual channels, that should be more than enough for 4 to 8 cores.

 

[busydude]

microstuttering no longer effect the HD4870 CF.

Micro stutter is inherent to Multi GPU gaming. Saying it does not effect a certain card based on a sample size of 2 is, to put it plainly, just stupid.

 

[Justesting]

@yasasvy
Sorry, but as i saw those test results i thought to myself, dam there is microstuttering right there, but then i looked closely, well i be damned only 0.4-1ms of micro stuttering.

 

[Caribbean Geek]

I've notice some microstuttering in games like Singularity which renders at ver high FPS and Need for Speed Shift before the patch, microstuttering happens rarely though compared to previous generation of Multi GPU solutions, but definitively having an HD 4870 CF setup currently will put you on the same bracket performance as the GTX 470 and HD 5870 which is no slouch for a videocard that was launched way back to June 2008.