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Help Decide: i5 + 6950 or AMD phenom II x6 + 6950 crossfire?

2

2wiced

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 14, 2005
Messages
3,366
Hey guys,

I have a friend who is considering upgrading his current rig. He plays lots of games and wants fast game play. So stands the question.

what will perform better and faster for games. He can get the phenom II x6 for cheap.

if you had to choose between either of the two without adding anything. which one for games would be better. By games I mean: metro2033, battlefield bad company 2, crysis, and all the new ones that are coming out.

a Phenom II x6 @ 3.8ghz + 6950 (unlocked) crossfire

or

i5 2500k + 6950 unlocked?

Resolution 1920x1080

input and questions are welcomed. We both would like to know.
 
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there is no reason at all to go with a Phenom build. even the lowest end i5 2300 spanks any AMD chip on the market.
 
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Thanks. But I didnt ask intel or amd.

I asked, AMD + 6950 crossfire

or

Intel and a single 6950 for gaming
 
If gaming at high resolution, the AMD/Crossfire build would be preferable since GPU performance will be the limiting factor. If gaming at a lower resolution and use the computer for additional task such as video encoding then Intel with a single GPU is the more advisable route.
 
Its debatable, the x6 isnt a bad chip by any means.

If it was me, I would probably go with the x6 along with CF 6950's right off the bat for amazing performance.

If getting another 6950 was something to be had in the future, the intel 2500k would probably be my choice.

Personally, I'm not one to need the top performance in terms of computing power. But I do like my games to run at high resolutions.
 
I would go the Crossfire route at that resolution. I play at 1920*1200 with a single highly overclocked 5870 and am finding that I'm going to need more GPU power to keep smooth framerates at high settings. The X6 is enough to keep games happy, especially when overclocked.
 
Does your friend already have an AM3 mobo, or is he going to buy one?

If he doesn't already have one, it makes no sense to get onto AM3 now. One unlocked 6950 is already so much for 1080p that I would go SB, and then do whatever after that.
 
It would cost him out of pocket 135 dollars to go x6 8gb of ram and crossfire board. He already has one 6950.

He would be paying full price for sandy bridge.
 
I would go the sb route. It will give him more options in the long run, and he can always upgrade/add a card later if he feels the need.
 
From your post, it sounds like he already has the AM3 mobo using what I can only assume is a quad core Phenom. The X6 will not give you any extra performance in games...assuming his current CPU can reach a similar clock speed.
Additionally, at 1080p...I don't see the benefit of another 6950. One should be plenty at that resolution. That said, if he absolutely needs to upgrade something, then I'd simply buy another 6950 + more ram, and keep his current CPU (assuming its a quad). There is very little reason if any to get the X6 now, not with Bulldozer a couple months away and Sandy Bridge.

So, here is my suggestion.

Keep current hardware and save money. Wait for Bulldozer. If its great, upgrade then...if its a bust, go SB. If he must buy something, then get another 6950, because the graphics cards will be reused on the next rig.
 
I'll give you a heads up on the HD 6950. Damn fan is loud anywhere above 40%! It finally got around to waking me up so make sure you have good case cooling.
 
I am with the hold off Bregade. If he already has a PII X4 then the Thuban is just more threads not more in game performance.

Get the second 6950 and wait till BD comes out. Then you have the option of keeping the memory and video cards and just replacing mobo and CPU.
 
They are actually quite comparable. The 2500K isn't much faster, sometimes slower, than my 1090T when it comes to the games I play (CSS, BlackOps, BC2). Stock performance the 2500K will cream the 1090t but once you overclock the two, especially the cpu-nb, the difference is negligible.

You're getting much more raw GPU power out of the 1090T rig and if that's what he needs I say go for it. If not, 2500K + Single GPU.
 
Playing on a single 6950 with an x6 1055t and running 5670x1080 most games with high/maxed settings just fine. You'll destroy everything with CF 6950s at that resolution.

And if he's already got an AM3 mobo... doesn't seem like a hard decision.
 
I had a 1090t / crossfire 6950 setup and was gaming on a single 1920 x 1080p monitor. I found no need to use the 2nd 6950 so I ended up selling it on here. I also upgraded to the 2600k and haven't seen a noticeable gain in any gaming I do(BFBC2, L4D2, Mafia2)

That being said, If he has the upgrade itch and the money, then by all means go get a 2500k. If he's trying to do things on the cheap, a 1090t and a 2nd 6950 isn't exactly a slouch by any means.

I'd also like to see these claims of an i5 2300 beating all AMD processors...
 
The 1055T is slow per-core, very slow by modern standards. if the game isn't multi-threaded, and only allows 2-4 cores (still common, sadly) then it's going to get eaten alive by a Sandy bridge CPU.
Stock sandy bridge CPUs can take on overclocked Phenom II X6 CPUs in multi-threaded benches and sometimes win, that's how much faster they are. Gaming-wise the X6 is just a bad idea.
 
I don't really think AMD stands a chance once you start overclocking the i7... especially Sandy Bridge...

Also, you gotta find out what your bottleneck is. Some games, it may be the CPU, while some it may be your GPU. But honestly, I gave up on AMD. They are the budget route and if $ was an issue, then go for that. If you want real power, then go for the Intel. I went with Intel myself because I generally upgrade comps every 4+ years and I wanted to do it right this time. Also I wasn't going to buy another AMD. I've used them plenty enough in my past comps since I was in highschool where I didn't have the $ to blow on expensive comps and I am simply not pleased with their performance.

But then again if it comes down to 1 vs 2 gfx cards, I'd probably try to stick to 1 because if you go 2 cards, you'd have to also increase the power supply cost and electric bill lol.
 
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samuelmorris said:
The 1055T is slow per-core, very slow by modern standards. if the game isn't multi-threaded, and only allows 2-4 cores (still common, sadly) then it's going to get eaten alive by a Sandy bridge CPU.
Stock sandy bridge CPUs can take on overclocked Phenom II X6 CPUs in multi-threaded benches and sometimes win, that's how much faster they are. Gaming-wise the X6 is just a bad idea.
Click to expand...

It sounds to me like you don't have much first hand experience with Thuban or any Phenom 2 for that matter. If it's the only thing they do match intel on, it's gaming performance. They are pretty much even with the exception of a few games like DA:O and FarCry2. 90% of reviews you read don't touch cpu-nb clocks which is a waste and not truly indicative of the performance one would see with a properly configured/oc'd Phenom 2 setup and this is something I and many others have been preaching for some time.

CPU-NB increase IPC/Clock for Clock Efficiency.

You can't go wrong with either choice but if he's already got an AM3 board he should go with X6 + GPU or GPUx2. Especially in light of the potential sandy bridge mobo recall.
 
terrybogard21 said:
I'll give you a heads up on the HD 6950. Damn fan is loud anywhere above 40%! It finally got around to waking me up so make sure you have good case cooling.
Click to expand...

Really? I have an Antec 900 (pretty decent case airflow but I didn't think it was that good) in a fairly hot space and I never even hear my 6970.
 
TheBlueChanell said:
It sounds to me like you don't have much first hand experience with Thuban or any Phenom 2 for that matter. If it's the only thing they do match intel on, it's gaming performance. They are pretty much even with the exception of a few games like DA:O and FarCry2. 90% of reviews you read don't touch cpu-nb clocks which is a waste and not truly indicative of the performance one would see with a properly configured/oc'd Phenom 2 setup and this is something I and many others have been preaching for some time.
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I disagree. I don't believe not a single website would change something that drastically affects gaming performance when benching games, and every gaming bench I've seen the X4s have fared well against Core 2s, and even not too far behind i5s/i7s, but sandy bridge CPUs just demolish them, no super-optimised setting is going to make up that difference.

terrybogard21 said:
Damn fan is loud anywhere above 40%!
Click to expand...
Why on earth would you have it above 40%? On auto the highest my cards have reached is 40%, and that's playing Crysis. They're still only at 80C at that speed, well within tolerance. For the majority of games I can force speeds at 35% and run fine, and that's pretty quiet. Auto doesn't set the speed much higher than that either. Moderately demanding games like Heroes of Newerth I set 32%/30% on each card, which is very quiet.
 
samuelmorris said:
I disagree. I don't believe not a single website would change something that drastically affects gaming performance when benching games, and every gaming bench I've seen the X4s have fared well against Core 2s, and even not too far behind i5s/i7s, but sandy bridge CPUs just demolish them, no super-optimised setting is going to make up that difference.
Click to expand...

Anand had a piece on this last year that showed pretty large gains from essentially nothing in SC2 and other games. I can't quite tell you why nobody bothers to clock this but of all the reviews I've read be it Intel, or AMD it seems like the cpu-nb clock is forgotten or barely pushed and only on chips that have locked multi's simply because they almost have too.

I'm not saying that it magically makes a Phenom2 better than nehalem/sandy bridge but It certainly increases performance by a very large ammount and closes the gap to the point where, imo, in all but the heaviest of workloads your price increase going from a Ph2 to an i5/i7 platform almost insn't worth the cost.

I've always found the C2Q class comparison a little sketchy considering when I first moved back to AMD from Intel I came from a P45/Q9450 @ 4ghz setup to the AM2+ Ph2 940 and definitely saw a performance increase with the 940 @ 3.8ghz/2.8ghz accross the board.

I've owned pretty much every major uarch from both Intel and AMD from k7/p4 days and onward. I really dont carry any bias and I call it like I see it and this is how I truelly feel. The Phenom2 always, to me, set itself in a nice comfortable performance bracket significantly above 45nm Core2Quads, and nipping on the heels in i5/i7 in all but certain applications.

Also, cpu-nb clock also increases memory throughput, I figured I'd throw this in there as an aside. I wasn't trying to belittle you or flame you, just speaking my mind as a user who owns both a current Intel and AMD setup. I will say that the 2600K would be a larger upgrade / performanc increase from a 1090T. I would say the 2500K is almost a sidegrade but that's just me and taking the rest of the platform into acount. 890FX vs. P67 etc.
 
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