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AMD 955 vs Intel i7 920

bombfirst885

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I'm building a new PC, and sort of new to the whole thing. I was wondering if the price difference of the 920 is worth it?
 
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What are you using your PC for?
 

troyrae360

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Lol, just wanted to see what your Disabled image was :p

 
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IMO the i7 is not worth an additional $120 for what I use it for (gaming). Depends on what your primary use for the PC is.
 
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Phenom II if just for gaming. i7 is really only useful if you do multi-stage rendering or video processing for a living.. lol.
 
I

InTeL-iNsIdE

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Phenom II if just for gaming. i7 is really only useful if you do multi-stage rendering or video processing for a living.. lol.

It is also a known fact that the i7 gives one a much bigger e-peen, I can vouch for this, before i7 I was an average white dude epeen kind of person, now with i7 I have a magnificent holy smokes :eek: epeen you dont want your mrs to see :cool: :laugh:
 

Kei

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I concur with all the replies in the thread so far lol. For anything short of doing multistage rendering, video/audio processing, or otherwise something ridiculous that you do for a living the Phenom is a smarter buy.

Personal preference may have you buy the i7 anyway if you prefer a particular company. Just know that if you went the Phenom route you will not lose anything and will be smokin fast with either processor.

Kei
 
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IMO the i7 920 isn't really worth it due to the expensive mobo that comes with it, for not much of a performance gain. My main hesitation would be with the i5 750, which costs barely more than the P2X4 965 for a decent increase in video encoding (I saw a +20% for DivX, too bad they didn't test the codecs I use...) and something else I forgot, and comparable performance for the rest.
 
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I wouldn't go P55, it's a dead-end socket. AM3 has Bulldozer laid out for it and the architecture seems interesting/promising.
 
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I wouldn't go P55, it's a dead-end socket. AM3 has Bulldozer laid out for it and the architecture seems interesting/promising.
Yeah, right. I'm not an upgrader so I didn't take that into consideration, but obviously for someone willing to upgrade the CPU later, P55 might not be a good idea indeed.
 
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well a i7 may be over kill for a gaming rig today, but no one can argue with the fact that the i7 will keep up with future games alot better than any of the current Phenom II CPUs. Something to consider(longer useable lifespan with the i7).
 
I

InTeL-iNsIdE

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IMO the i7 920 isn't really worth it due to the expensive mobo that comes with it, for not much of a performance gain. My main hesitation would be with the i5 750, which costs barely more than the P2X4 965 for a decent increase in video encoding (I saw a +20% for DivX, too bad they didn't test the codecs I use...) and something else I forgot, and comparable performance for the rest.

Ok, put it this way, if you have the $/£ to spend then it is worth it.

If you dont have the budget dont buy, simple. If you do, you simply wont regret it for a start my i7 920 at 4ghz no pII can touch in terms of raw performance, not just encoding either, I run multiple vm's and having 8 threads helps a hell of a lot. Not only that but in 3 years time when your pii 965 is obsolete, my i7 will still be able to kick it.

I do have to agree if its just a gaming rig you are after and you dont have the budget then get the pii 965, its a damn good cpu for the $, however I know I can keep this rig for the next 3 years and only have to seriousley think about upgrading my gpu in that time. Also if you are a bench junkie then tri channel ram > dual channel, and in a year the i9 hexacores will be out, of course AMD have a hexacore on the horizon too, though whether it will be just for workstations yet I dont know, and still you dont get the raw performance of the i7/i9 and thats not too mention hyperthreading which does yield a significant performance increase in multi threaded apps/environments
 

bombfirst885

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My main purpose would be for gaming, yes.

I'm not the average tech head so I'm planning on using this with a HD 5770 for at least the next three years. Also gaming at 1900x1200 if that matters.
 
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My main purpose would be for gaming, yes.

I'm not the average tech head so I'm planning on using this with a HD 5770 for at least the next three years. Also gaming at 1900x1200 if that matters.
You are better off getting at lease a 5850 for gaming @1920*1200 ;)
Especially if you are not going to upgrade for the next 3 years.
 

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I think InTeL-iNsIdE hit it on the head...
I had x58 and went back to AM3, to be honest I like the AM3 better, it runs a LOT cooler, uses less power and plays all my games just as good as the i7. Oh and it was quite a bit less $ too..

The 1 thing I loved about X58 (besides the bad ass red/black mobo theme) was I constantly change GPUs and it was fun to be able to switch between SLI and Crossfire.
 
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get a PII dude, i have a core i7 rig and they are powerful but not worth it one bit, I wish i went with AM3 platform to be honest, intel is too complex for me.
 
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definitely 5850 and crossfire able motherboard ,, u will be fine with amd 955
 
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maybe even the PII 965 125w, I would get that, or even the so called PII 975 if AMD are actually bringing that out!
 
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I wouldn't go P55, it's a dead-end socket. AM3 has Bulldozer laid out for it and the architecture seems interesting/promising.

Ughhh, we really need to get away from this sort of thinking. The 1156 upgrade path is not much different than 1366. The primary difference is a single EE edition 6 core cpu that will cost you $1000. The 1156 socket gives you the options of i5, i7 and 1156 Xeon chips. It will be around for a long time.
 
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nice pic Paul...somebody's getting an early Christmas present
i wonder tho will 1156 socket support any 6core or 8 core cpu's down the road,, i dont c y not,, if it will then that's an awesome platform
 

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Ive been discouraged with my Phenom II 965 BE C3 125W due to overclocking issues. If this chip would do what i wanted it to do i would be so happy. Other than the overclocking issue, Its a fast CPU! it does alot of things that would take other CPUs alot longer to do. I7 920 is a good CPU but like some of the other guys said, its expensive and yes it maybe faster but not really by much. Im trying to sort out my Overclocking issues but other than that im comfortable with this CPU
 
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Ive been discouraged with my Phenom II 965 BE C3 125W due to overclocking issues. If this chip would do what i wanted it to do i would be so happy. Other than the overclocking issue, Its a fast CPU! it does alot of things that would take other CPUs alot longer to do. I7 920 is a good CPU but like some of the other guys said, its expensive and yes it maybe faster but not really by much. Im trying to sort out my Overclocking issues but other than that im comfortable with this CPU

what do you think is causing the OC issues? just curious thats all.
 
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I agree that the 955 + 5850 will give you the greatest bang for the buck here.
 
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You should check out this review here.

Maybe by looking at the numbers you can decide if it's worth it or not. Personally I'm surprised by the difference and glad i went i7.
 
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