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You can go ahead and post a legitimate reason why. Statements don't help much without them.

Quads are the future, and in many cases the present. Games are more commonly becoming multi-threaded, and OS'es already are. If he's thinking of moving to Win7 when it releases, he will absolutely utilize a quad on a daily basis.

 

If you go with an AM3 mobo, you need DDR3 ram. That's all that will go into an AM3 mobo.

If you go AM2+ or Intel socket 775, you can use DDR2 memory. Neither of these sockets may have much life left. They'll probably be supported for a couple more years at best.

You could go Core i7, but the boards worth buying are very expensive. In the $300 range, to be exact. Going Core i7 also requires DDR3 ram, preferably in a Triple Channel kit (aka: 3 sticks of memory). So a raise in budget may be needed.

So, if you take incremental cpu upgrades out of the equation (considering we don't really know what AMD or Intel's plans are past the next 2 years or so), the Intel Q9550 is the way to go.

If we want to try to maximize future upgrade potential for the cpu, AM3 or Core i7 is the way to go.

Some other things to consider:

Going with AMD or Socket 775 Intel forces you to choose a board that supports either Crossfire (ATI's multiple graphics card solution) OR SLI (nVidia's solution), not both. This limits your future graphics card choices.

Going with Core i7 allows you to use either Crossfire or SLI on the same board.

The path that has the highest upgrade potential is Core i7, followed by AM3, followed by AM2+ and S775.

!00% correct. Going dual core defeats the purpose of trying to future proof as much as possible. My 4GHz quad smashes even 5Ghz dual cores in things like video encoding, and multi-threaded games like SupCom.

 

Since when? I've not been following AM3 related news or AMD related as a whole too much, but last time, AM3 would support both DDR2 and DDR3. When did this change??

 

Been a while. The current AM3 boards are DDR3 only. AMD plans to drop DDR2 controllers in their cpus sometime this year or next, I seem to remember hearing as well. Welcome to the early days of S775. AMD is guilty of it as well.

 

1:ther is NO real life benefits to them
2:QUADS ARE NOT THE FUTURE!!!!!!!!there will be 6 and 8 core cpu out in this year allready then it is benefisial to update from 2 cores

 

The new AMD board the m4a79 from Asus supports DDR2/3 on the other hand the m4a79-t is only DDR3.

 

Yes there is a real benefit to quads. I dare you to encode videos on a dual core as fast as a quad. I dare you to be able to multitask on a dual as much as a quad.

And the 6 and 8 core cpus may not be in his price range at first. If he buys a quad now, he can wait for the price drops on the 6-8 core cpus, whereas with a dual, he'd have to buy them sooner to maintain his performance level.

It's always best to buy the best components you can afford at the time of purchase.

 

1. There IS in some games (try Supreme commander or Empires TW ha), and with higher-end cards there are overall higher.
2. And next year 16 and 32 the next. Conclusion: don't buy anything because there will always be something "better". You know, I love the fact you don't agree to Quads, because all their cores are not used in most games, but the other reason you give is that 6 and 8 cores are coming soon? That has no logic man.

 

Is that out yet? And that still doesn't change the fact that AMD will be moving to DDR3 only controllers on their chips. With the way prices on DDR3 have come down, it's probably best he just goes DDR3 if he plans to go AMD anyway.

 

I was fairly certain that you didn't have anything reasonable. Thanks for visiting.

 

I said real life!!!!!! that guy is not encoding videos:shadedshu

 

Are you serious? Of course there is, if there is not I guess they would have never brought them to the market right? I think what darkmatter was getting at is the quads are the future for multicore processors, he never said that it will only be quads..yes 6 and 8 cores are in the near future but a quad will serve him well now. Alot of apps/games in the future will supper multicore as some do now. As wile E said test a dual vs a quad in multitasking video editing etc than tell me if there is a benefit.

 

im just helping a guy save some cash if you dont like that go f yourself:shadedshu

 

Ummm, simply converting your DVDs or video files for use on a portable player is encoding, and COMPLETELY real life usage.

Quit trolling and leave this thread already, you have no credible arguments.

 

He has a budget, has goals, and a quad fits in both of those. You're not helping, you're pouting. We have nothing against people putting up good conversation 'round here, but if you can't contain your tantrums, we might not be the right place for you.

 

Yes I believe so..and yes moving to ddr3 would be a wise move...but he could do it later as well.

No insults please, I understand you are trying to help as we are too. You cannot come
In here and say a quad has no advantages over a dual and not expect to get questioned.

 

im not suyig that they are not a step forward! i am mearly pointing out that the step is VERY littel!! SO ARE WE COOL?

 

Please go research a quad vs a dual than get back at us.

 

i have done my research buddy

 

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/phenomii_720_810_am3/14.htm
As you can see, in gaming CPU's don't really make a difference. I would MUCH rather have a HD 4870 X2 and a Phenom II 710 rather than a HD 4830 and a Core i7.

 

Apparently not.

But on topic: AMD Phenom II with DDR3 would be the better way for "future proofing". But if the funds aren't there, then he could always go with DDR2.

 

Gaming isn't the only use for a computer. I'd much rather have the i7 and 4870 1GB.

No, the best way to future proof would be i7, followed by AM3.

 

Erm apparently no.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-multigpu-sli-crossfire-game-performance-review/19

Yeah tri sli, but if you look at the rest of the article you'll see crossfire and more modest sli benefits a lot too. Single cards don't benefit so much, but they do benefit from quads, the higher in the performance stack, the more they benefit. And if he wants to go Crossfire in the future it will surely benefit from a Quad.

Also Ati cards do benefit more than Nvidia ones.

 

And you linked the only game in that review that shows no gains with different CPUs. A game with a 2004 engine. But what about Crysis, FarCry2, Fallout 3 and COD5, for example?? Yeah is not that high the difference, but it will just get bigger and bigger with newer releases. And price of Quad vs Dual isn't that high neither.

 

Yes for 5 min