X6 or wait for Fusion?

[beyond_amusia]

I'm slowly getting back on my feet after 2 big moves (from NE to MS to MD) and it's nearly time for me to replace my old tower, which I had to sell before my first move... So, should I build an X6 rig or wait until Fusion appears? I kinda need a rig soon because the graphics card in my laptop is one of the faulty nV ones (GeForce Go 7900 GTX) and it runs hella hot (like 81C) just with Zune open or while I play Guild Wars...

My 'tower' is also rather sad - a MSI mobo with a few missing caps, an Athlon X2 4000+, 3GB DDR2 667 RAM, and a Radeon X300 PCIe all in a beige case with a 5000+ rpm server case fan on the rear to keep it cool (all those parts were recovered from a recycling center and omg it works fine )

The proposed PC will replace my laptop and primarily be used for music production (FL Studio, Acid, ect), Photoshop/Lightroom, and of course gaming.

[cadaveca]

Unelss you want to wait for at least a minimum of a year, get X6. High-performance Fusion-based parts(with Bulldozer core) are still some ways out yet.

If you're gonna do audio production, your main concern should be a "prosumer grade" audio card.

Fusion will be gpu intergrated with the core...you are definately not the target market on initial release.

[human_error]

From a gaming perspective:

It all depends on how desperate you are. With that setup i'd be very tempted to get myself a nice graphics card upgrade and a new psu (with loads of room for powering what you'll eventually end up with) for the desktop and keep the cpu/mobo/ram for a while longer - maybe buy a new case too. I'd then wait to see what sandy bridge and bulldozer bring to the table late this year early next year.

From a productivity perspective:

If you are finding that improved photoshop speed and think that your music production could be sped up with an x6 are things you'd really like to have now then upgrade the whole damned thing then - x6 are pretty reasonably priced and the first fusion and sandy bridge chips are mid-range ones which help improve power usage in non-gaming machines by giving decent integrated gpu power on the cpu chips - as you'll be getting a dedicated graphics card anyway you'd only see lower temps and power usage with the new chips.

Looking at both:

Upgrade - you get a good bang for your buck and the next generation of high-end cpu's to bring a lot more cpu power to the market are a year away at best.

[beyond_amusia]

The mobo is AM2, and will do a Phenom X4 I think, but hell, I just ditched my Phenom rig 4 months back! =(

EDIT: hmm... the mobo makes me nervous... what are some adverse effects of missing caps? They are the ones near the CPU, at the rear of the board.

EDIT: So, IS there a real difference between the two X6 CPUs? Enough to justify the price gap?

[bpgt64]

You can build a cherry i7 or X6 build right now that will dominate anything out there. But I'd remember these words. When making a gaming build, remember to balance out cost.

The cost of your entire rig minus GPU(s), should equal the cost of the GPU(s).

Or at least thats what I think

[beyond_amusia]

Originally Posted by bpgt64

You can build a cherry i7 or X6 build right now that will dominate anything out there. But I'd remember these words. When making a gaming build, remember to balance out cost.

The cost of your entire rig minus GPU(s), should equal the cost of the GPU(s).

Or at least thats what I think

LOL! I can't afford a $700 GPU... Donate? LOL!!!

[bpgt64]

Actually, I retract those words, the GTX 460/470|HD 5850 are definitly breaking up that ratio a bit.

[W1zzard]

fusion is some time in first half of 2011 .. quite some time to wait. and i doubt they will be high-end

[beyond_amusia]

Ok, X6 it is. =)

[bpgt64]

If you have access to a Microcenter, you might wanna consider an i7 based rig, unless you really want to avoid them?

[beyond_amusia]

Intel is too over priced... the $300 X6 runs around the similarly priced i7 CPUs in multi threaded apps, right?

[bpgt64]

If you can get access to an i7 930 from Microcenter, that's 200 dollars for the chip.

[beyond_amusia]

so the i7 930 out does an X6?