The Q8200 it's better than the X3 720 BE?
According to iXBT Labs review the 720 BE seems to perform faster than the Q8200 in just about every task.
http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/cpu/amd-phenom-2-720-810-920-p2.html
http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/cpu/amd-phenom-2-720-810-920-p3.html
http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/cpu/amd-phenom-2-720-810-920-p4.html
Edit:
However, after looking at a few other review sites such as Legit reviews the Q8200 seems to out perform the 720 BE in the majority of benchmarks, mostly by an significant amount but it outperforms it never the less, the extra core probably helps aids it to victory. Saying that though one has to weigh up the price to performance ratio before making a decision.
Sihastru, have you considered the X4 810, they are faster than the Q8200? and tend to be cheaper in many countries.
Edit 2:
I would give my right arm for a X3, but then again i'm a bit of an overclocker so the cheapest route to achieving the same performance as the people that want to pay twice the price for more exotic CPUs has always been my way of doing upgrades.
Edit 3:
Unfortunately in our country the X3 720 BE is 537,28 RON and the X4 920 is 728,47 RON. Not exactly half the price.
I'm not saying the X3 720 BE would be a bad alternative, by all means, get it if it suit you, I just have a psychological problem with things that have disabled cores. It's like having 4 tires on your car, but one of them is flat.
With for one flat tire your the car couldn't operate as intended.
The disabled core of the X3 still operates as intended and even beats out the fully functional X4s in many tasks. But I would agree, if you can afford a Phenom X4 or a Q8200 or better you'd be better off as it would perform much better overall. The main reason I suggested the 720 BE in particular was because in the original post I thought the threadstarter wanted a mild overclock and I’ve read some amazing reviews and comments on forums where people claimed to get near 3.6 GHz without raising the voltage because of its unlocked multiplier - at this speed even an higher tier Q9xxx or I7 at stock would struggle against it.
But I suppose it comes down to which applications the threadstarter will be using? he didn't explain which "just non gaming PC" which any computer would do. If its just to browse the internet and do word processing I'd buy a cheap dual core.
Edit 4:
So after some good days of thinking i arrived at the conclusion that i'm gona buy a not so powerfull rig, with the following hardware setup:
CPU - Intel C2Q Q6600,
Mobo - MSI P35 Neo2-FR,
Memory - 2x2Gb Corsair XMS2 1066Mhz Cl5,
HDD - WD Black 640Gb,
GPU - HIS HD4830 512Mb,
PSU - Thermaltake TR2 470W,
Case - CoolerMaster Centurion 534,
Optical - LG 22x Dvd-Rw
And for gaming i will buy a
PlayStation3 80Gb... because this summer a PS3 throws out a lots of awesome games...
That rig you are buying is a gaming rig! No need for PS3 at all
Personally I like to build my own, you could most definitely build a better one for cheaper, but its a nice rig and should run today's games like a breeze nether the less.
