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Build for my girl... wanting to contrast my current system.

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So I've been wanting to build a system for my girl for quite a while now, only I think it would be cool to build it as a contrast to my current rig (n.audBl).

So here is the thing. I am a complete idiot when it comes to AMD processors and motherboards. We would want this to be a powerful gaming system just like mine, but would going with an AMD CPU be a severe hinderence? I'm already set on getting her ATI video card(s), but I can't decide if I should just stick with Intel or go for a full contrast and set her up with an AMD rig.

There is also the option of building her a Nehalem rig, but that may cause more problems that it is worth until all the kinks are worked out of the Nehalem architecture.

What do ya'll think??
 
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Budget would be my first question. Most here will tell you that Intel is the way to go for hardcore gaming, but you can put together a decent AMD rig if you want. What games does she play?
 
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I see you have another thread discussing Nehalem. In accordance with that, build her a cheap Intel system from what's out there now, and wait to see on Nehalem.


There's plenty of LGA775 boards out there at ridiculously low prices, and you can couple it with an E8400 and whatever card of your choosing, which would be more than enough for current games, and games to come for a while.


Since you're building it for her, it gives the impression she's not THAT into computing/gaming, or at least not as much as yourself, which to put it bluntly, would leave me telling you that it's not 'worth' spending the money on Nehalem for a system FOR her.

The benefits of Nehalem are going to be big, it's a large step forward in processor <-> motherboard interfacing, but for your use, and at this junction in time, the gains won't be necessary. Thus the cost isn't really justifyable in her case.

It might not even be justifyable in your case.
 
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IMO man, a good solid budget gaming PC go with AMD, hardcore gaming go with Intel, pretty simple really but its up to you
 
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IMO man, a good solid budget gaming PC go with AMD, hardcore gaming go with Intel, pretty simple really but its up to you

Whaaa?

How does that make sense when Intel's chips beat AMD in every part of the market, price, performance and price/performance?


You could easily slap a cheap late model E or Q for that matter, onto an old Nforce 6 board which, I would consider quite 'budget,' and it would crush everything AMD has to offer.


I can't see AMD being of use in anything but server machines.

BTW, him going AMD would not be 'budget' as he'd be having to buy more components.
 

kwchang007

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AMD's quads are ok for gaming. Um too get the best performance, you're defiantly looking at overclocking them though, although to be completely honest, if you use a high end gfx card and turn settings up the gfx card will be the limiting factor in most cases.

BUT (there's always a but) Intel will give you better results at lower resolutions and in other things that are cpu intensive. This is a good read: http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/1
 

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IF you want total contrast, get her a phenom x3 8750 :D. You could couple that with a 790FX board and be good to go. Otherwise, you could go phenom be 9850 with the 790GX board to take advantage of the ACC on the SB750.
 
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I realize now I was a bit too vague in my original post... I'm bad about doing that. Sorry.

- First off, I am not interested in making it a budget rig, but I'm not going to go overboard either.

- I'm pretty set on a 4870X2 to start out and probably a second one a few months later.

- The monitor will be at least a 24" at 1900x1200.

- OS will be Vista 64bit to allow higher memory quantity.

- Cooling will be all air. We may go with a simple liquid system later if noise ends up being an issue, but I'd like to see just how quiet of an air system we can build.

- I'd like to go with DDR3, but that may be hitting the threshold of how much we will be willing to spend.

- Take a look at my current specs. She is extremely jealous of how gorgeous games look on my rig compared to her XPS Laptop, so I want to at least get the gaming performance of her system up to (or at least very near) my level.

This would be her first real computer and she would basically be building it under my supervision. She's not as into computers as I am, but that is mainly because she hasn't really been exposed to it. However, she's an engineer so there won't be much chance of me blowing smoke up her arse in regards to quality components. Besides, I'm trying to educate and inspire her with this, not simply build her a plain system.

So... back to my original question... can a screaming gamer rig be built on an AMD platform with current AMD offerings (or near future) or are they really just too far behind these days.
 
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IF you want total contrast, get her a phenom x3 8750 :D. You could couple that with a 790FX board and be good to go. Otherwise, you could go phenom be 9850 with the 790GX board to take advantage of the ACC on the SB750.

Again... I'm an AMD idiot. About what would this compare to in an Intel lineup? The minimum performance standard I would want to go with would be something like an Intel E8200 or so.
 

kwchang007

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Honestly if you're looking at going xfire with 4870x2's I would recommend a good dual core Intel. Maybe a quad, all of the good boards usually do xfire, plus ddr3 is more prevalent on Intel I think.
 

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Ok, if you want something that is near your machine, nothing on AMD's side will come close processor wise. There just isn't anything they have put out on the market that will come close to an E8500 at 4GHz or higher. AMD just doesn't have processor that can compete at that level. Most of the dual cores stuggle to break the 3.6GHz barrier AND they perform worse per clock, so getting something that can match your processor on the AMD side is pretty out of the question. Their quad core processors give you the added horse power of the extra cores, but they overclock even worse than the Dual Cores, and most games don't use the extra cores anyway. It is hard to even get one of their dual cores when overclocked to even compete with the E8400 at stock speeds.

Now, having said that, if you put a decent Dual Core(or even Quad Core) AMD processor in her system, it will be good enough and the difference will be measurable in benchmarks, but not really noticeable in real world gaming.
 
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AMD's quads are ok for gaming. Um too get the best performance, you're defiantly looking at overclocking them though, although to be completely honest, if you use a high end gfx card and turn settings up the gfx card will be the limiting factor in most cases.

BUT (there's always a but) Intel will give you better results at lower resolutions and in other things that are cpu intensive. This is a good read: http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/1

Thanks for the link. Excellent info there.
 
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Ok, if you want something that is near your machine, nothing on AMD's side will come close processor wise. There just isn't anything they have put out on the market that will come close to an E8500 at 4GHz or higher. AMD just doesn't have processor that can compete at that level. Most of the dual cores stuggle to break the 3.6GHz barrier AND they perform worse per clock, so getting something that can match your processor on the AMD side is pretty out of the question. Their quad core processors give you the added horse power of the extra cores, but they overclock even worse than the Dual Cores, and most games don't use the extra cores anyway. It is hard to even get one of their dual cores when overclocked to even compete with the E8400 at stock speeds.

Now, having said that, if you put a decent Dual Core(or even Quad Core) AMD processor in her system, it will be good enough and the difference will be measurable in benchmarks, but not really noticeable in real world gaming.

Thanks newtekie1,

I doubt she will ever care about benchmarks, just game performance. I'm probably the one who will end up running benchmarks on her rig just for curiosity and comparison's sake (and the fact that her rig will be about 3 feet away right next to mine so benching comparisons will be irresistible for me).

Hmm... I'm going to have to chew on this for a while. I wanna do it but I fear I'll end up regretting it down the road. You know... kind of like those people that buy a Mac to be unique and then end up using it to murder some innocent fellow starbuckie months later when they simply can't stand the idiocy of their decision any longer.

/excessive dramatization
 
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I guess I could always build her a nehalem system... that way I get to test out the new architectrue without losing my current system's reliability and stability.
 
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I guess I could always build her a nehalem system... that way I get to test out the new architectrue without losing my current system's reliability and stability.

Now there's a thought
 
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I guess I could always build her a nehalem system... that way I get to test out the new architectrue without losing my current system's reliability and stability.

why don't you give yours and build yourself a nehalem based PC? May be she can still build it for you;)
 
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