Should I go AMD or Intel for a new system?

[jpacelli]

So I'm upgrading my PC
I've already order 3 Dell 2709W monitors, they arrive on friday
I purchased a Sapphire HD 5970 video card
I puchased the HAF 932 Limited Edition case, Red with the AMD Dragon on the side.
Already have a Thermaltake ToguhPower 750W modular PSU

Now I'm shopping for the Motherboard/CPU and memory.
I've been looking at the Intel i7 930 which just released and 12Gb DDR3 1600 ram
Not sure on the motherboard yet.

But I'm also wondering how good is the AMD X4 965? Prior to my Q6600 I always had an AMD.

Currently I have an ASUS motherboard, Q6600 CPU (not overclocked) with stock fan and 4Gb ram

I was going to keep my current motherboard,CPU and memory and just add 4Gb more of memory and just move these to the new case but the wife said go ahead and get the motherboard/cpu/memory and give my old system to my son.

So now I'm trying to decide what to pruchase.

Any help is appreciated.

Joe

_________________
ASUS P5N-D | Q6600 | EVGA 8800 GT 512mb | 4Gb DDR2 | 500Gb HD | 2 x 250GB HD | Win 7 x64
Logitech 5500 5.1 speakers | Logitech G500 | Vizio 26" LCD | 750 PW

 

[klocwerk]

If you have a microcenter nearby, it's hard to beat the 920 for $199. Otherwise the 930's a good buy.
Pick up a nice x58 motherboard with USB3 and SATA3 and you'll be set for quite awhile.

 

[2March]

I7's do more work per clock cycle than PII's. So much that at 2.66 GHz an I7 beats a PII at 3.4 GHz. Besides, the I7 has Hyper-Threading, the PII doesn't.

For gaming this matters little because the emphasis is on graphics performance but if you need the processsing power without the graphics card being the bottleneck the i7 is the way to go. It will cost you more though.

 

[jpacelli]

If you have a microcenter nearby, it's hard to beat the 920 for $199. Otherwise the 930's a good buy.
Pick up a nice x58 motherboard with USB3 and SATA3 and you'll be set for quite awhile.

No microcenter here where I live. I did look at the ASUS P6X58D Premium motherboard but heard some people say they had problems mounting it to the HAF 932.

 

[Absolution75]

If you're willing to spend the money, then ya, get the i7 930. But there really isn't that much performance difference between the i7 860 on P55 and i7 920.

The only reason I suggest looking at P55 or even Phenom II's is that you will probably find yourself two years from now wondering you bought 12GB of Ram when you probably won't push more than 6GB in that time. At that point, then why get x58?
I'd save the $100-$200 you by going with 1156 i7/i5 or AMD3 and put it to your next upgrade. They will also in price less.

 

[crisium]

Since you have a dual-GPU card you should go i7. They seem to have better multi-card scaling than Phenom II systems.

Now a Phenom II 965 utterly destroys the i7 920/930 in terms of price-to-performance ratio, based on Newegg prices. By this I mean the i7 CPU is more than 50% more expensive, but you're kidding yourself if you think it's gonna perform even close to 50% better. Also you will probably pay more for a 1366 Motherboard.

But since you dropped so much money on your GPU, you might as well push it all the way and spend the extra money for an Intel system.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

I'd go with intel, i believe it is also better optimized for power consumption.

 

[jpacelli]

If you're willing to spend the money, then ya, get the i7 930. But there really isn't that much performance difference between the i7 860 on P55 and i7 920.

The only reason I suggest looking at P55 or even Phenom II's is that you will probably find yourself two years from now wondering you bought 12GB of Ram when you probably won't push more than 6GB in that time. At that point, then why get x58?
I'd save the $100-$200 you by going with 1156 i7/i5 or AMD3 and put it to your next upgrade. They will also in price less.

The reason I'm going with 12Gb of ram is not for the gaming aspect. But I'm a software developer and do C# development and also using SQL Server 2008 for development. So I'm always writing SPL's and SSIS packages in SQL Server which can easily use the 12Gb for a performance boost

 

[Axon]

Then you definitely want the best performing CPU. Get an i7 930. Are you going to overclock? The ASROCK Extreme X58 is $170 and has served me very well.

 

[anand_user]

I'd go with amd if yu game alot. I'd go with intel for other craps like encoding and shit.

 

[Keysplayr]

I'd go with amd if yu game alot. I'd go with intel for other craps like encoding and shit.

These aren't the Pentium4 vs. Athlon64 days. In those days, the only advantage Intel had over AMD was encoding and such. Everything else, AMD dominated.

That is not the case today.

You made a recommendation, but gave no reasons. Would you mind giving some examples of gaming dominance using AMD over Intel?

 

[Dark4ng3l]

These days I think having a good graphics card is MUCH more important for gaming than a fast CPU. But based on the amount of money you have already spent on the rest of the system there really is no point in trying to save 100$ or 150$ buying a more budget oriented AMD system. Just go with a core i7.

 

[cbn]

So I'm upgrading my PC
I've already order 3 Dell 2709W monitors, they arrive on friday
I purchased a Sapphire HD 5970 video card
I puchased the HAF 932 Limited Edition case, Red with the AMD Dragon on the side.
Already have a Thermaltake ToguhPower 750W modular PSU

Now I'm shopping for the Motherboard/CPU and memory.
I've been looking at the Intel i7 930 which just released and 12Gb DDR3 1600 ram
Not sure on the motherboard yet.

But I'm also wondering how good is the AMD X4 965? Prior to my Q6600 I always had an AMD.

Currently I have an ASUS motherboard, Q6600 CPU (not overclocked) with stock fan and 4Gb ram

I was going to keep my current motherboard,CPU and memory and just add 4Gb more of memory and just move these to the new case but the wife said go ahead and get the motherboard/cpu/memory and give my old system to my son.

So now I'm trying to decide what to pruchase.

Any help is appreciated.

Joe

_________________
ASUS P5N-D | Q6600 | EVGA 8800 GT 512mb | 4Gb DDR2 | 500Gb HD | 2 x 250GB HD | Win 7 x64
Logitech 5500 5.1 speakers | Logitech G500 | Vizio 26" LCD | 750 PW

If you are thinking about AMD then consider the new Gigabyte 890GX USB3 mainboard at newegg. It might even support "Bulldozer".

Otherwise I would go Intel. They definitely make better chips these days.

 

[cbn]

These days I think having a good graphics card is MUCH more important for gaming than a fast CPU.

I think this depends on how much a person values anti-aliasing.

At the moment (for a single monitor) it seems the mainstream cards (HD5770) are doing pretty well with AA turned off.

 

[jpacelli]

Well, I made my purchase.
I went with the following:
ASUS P6X58D Premium
Intel i7 930
WD WD1002FAEX Hard Drive 1 TB - SATA 6Gbs
OCZ Gold 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Voltage Desktop Memory Model OCZ3G1600LV12GS
2 LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer Black SATA Model iHAS424-98 LightScribe Support

Along with the items already coming
3 Dell 2709W monitors
Sapphire HD 5970 video card
Chief Technologies monitor array
Cooler Master HAF 932 (AMD Limited Edition)
Deck Legend Keyboard
G500 mouse (already have)

I can't wait to assembly this system over the next week once everything arrives.

Joe

 

[cbn]

Well, I made my purchase.
I went with the following:
ASUS P6X58D Premium
Intel i7 930
WD WD1002FAEX Hard Drive 1 TB - SATA 6Gbs
OCZ Gold 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Voltage Desktop Memory Model OCZ3G1600LV12GS
2 LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer Black SATA Model iHAS424-98 LightScribe Support

Along with the items already coming
3 Dell 2709W monitors
Sapphire HD 5970 video card
Chief Technologies monitor array
Cooler Master HAF 932 (AMD Limited Edition)
Deck Legend Keyboard
G500 mouse (already have)

I can't wait to assembly this system over the next week once everything arrives.

Joe

Can you show us a picture (in this thread) of the computer and triple monitor array when the project is finished?

It would also be good to hear your opinion on how well HD5970 handles 5760x1200.

 

[jpacelli]

No Problem. I hope to have it built by mid week next week since I'm waiting on delivery date for these last items I ordered last night

 

[Absolution75]

The reason I'm going with 12Gb of ram is not for the gaming aspect. But I'm a software developer and do C# development and also using SQL Server 2008 for development. So I'm always writing SPL's and SSIS packages in SQL Server which can easily use the 12Gb for a performance boost

Oh, well in that case ya. Good choice then.

Development tools eat up ram like none other. I sometimes have 3 instances of Visual Studio open and at that point, I sometimes notice a drop in performance.

GL on your build