Options options, time for a new system

[Lurch7]

Its come time to retire the old 3800+ and 7600GT and Ive come to an interesting impasse.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing?
Gaming mainly, some photo and video editing, also audio editing in the future.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Including tax and shipping 600-700
3) Where do you live?
Colorado, USA
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget?
Case, fans, cooler, CPU, Mobo, Memory, Hard Drive, OS
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?
Have an OCZ GameXstream 600w from my last build and a Radeon 5770 waiting.
6) Will you be overclocking?
Experienced with and open to overclocking, not an absolute requirement though.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Have a Samsung HDTV 1080p 60hz 37" with vga in, not ideal I know but no monitor or room for one on hand.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Starting now but will be building it through April as money allows.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
Would like to do crossfire considering my monitor issue, but future proofing is key.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
No, plan on getting a 64bit version of 7 Home, maybe full but probably OEM.

The major question is, on sale now at my local PC house I can pick up a Phenom II x4 955BE for 130, a good price from what Ive found. The real kicker is they also have an Intel i5 2400 avalible for $150 a steal but you cant get a motherboard for it anywhere yet. The question is should I go for the Phenom and get a motherboard for around 150 that I know will do crossfire at 16/16 or go for the more powerful i5 and have to wait and see the future for motherboard prices on the 1155 after the recall issue is resolved and from what Ive read the 2400 wont do more than pcie 8/8....a third option is they have an i3 550 for $99 which I know is also a solid performer.

Generally Ive been an AMD fanboy but I have an itching need to update to play current game titles and no clue as to what direction to go.

 

[Dangman]

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?
Have an OCZ GameXstream 600w from my last build and a Radeon 5770 waiting.

If you're planning on upgrading the video card or doing any sort of overclocking, get a new PSU as that PSU is barely capable of 500W of power when it was new. It's fairly old now so I would not trust that PSU with a new GPU or overclocking.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Starting now but will be building it through April as money allows.

Outside of really special deals, you're better off just saving your money and buying the PC parts all in one go. With the way computer hardware market is, generally prices on parts goes down or a faster part is introduced in the same price range as an older/slower part. So saving your money and buying all in one go will net you more up to date hardware or better deals. Or certain parts will become outdated or out of stock.

In addition, we need to finalize when exactly you're gonna buy the parts for the PC since, as noted earlier, a lot can change in a few months. Parts we recommend today may not be the same parts we recommend next month let alone 2-3 months from now. So if you want up to date advice on what parts to get, either narrow down your build date to this month or wait till the 2nd week of April and ask again for hardware advice.

The major question is, on sale now at my local PC house I can pick up a Phenom II x4 955BE for 130, a good price from what Ive found.

It's an ok deal: Only $10 less than other retailers

The real kicker is they also have an Intel i5 2400 avalible for $150 a steal but you cant get a motherboard for it anywhere yet. The question is should I go for the Phenom and get a motherboard for around 150 that I know will do crossfire at 16/16 or go for the more powerful i5 and have to wait and see the future for motherboard prices on the 1155 after the recall issue is resolved and from what Ive read the 2400 wont do more than pcie 8/8....

As I mention earlier, what parts you should get is largely dependent on when you're planning on building the entire PC.

As for the Crossfire: It doesn't make that much of a difference whether you have x8/x8 or x16/x16 Crossfire or SLI. It's been shown that even at at x4/x4 speeds, most high-end cards will not be bottlenecked that noticeably. In fact, it's not until you start playing at 2560x1600 do you see a slight difference between x4/x4 speeds and x16/x16 speeds and even then it's not that big. So x8/x8 is just fine for Crossfire or SLI.

a third option is they have an i3 550 for $99 which I know is also a solid performer.

Considering that a lot of games are starting to scale well past four cores, I would not recommend that option at all.

 

[Lurch7]

Thanks for the quick and thorough response Danny Bui. Ive been weary about the psu issue and planned on staying away from crossfire or overclocking until it was replaced but you affirmed that fear. The Radeon 5770 triggered this whole thing, it wouldnt play nice with my now antique nForce4 motherboard so out it came and Im gonna leave it in the box until I have a new system to go around it as I have already sent off for the rebate and can no longer return it, realizing its not a super powerful card I plan on going for crossfire in the future. The 16x 8x difference was also a big question to me, I knew that 4/4 or 16/4 were important to avoid but seeing that 8x is nothing to be scared of will probably be a major factor in my decisions between AMD and Intel and between motherboards.

So rather than worrying about missing deals on CPUs for now I think Ill focus on picking myself up a case, probably a HAF 912 or Antec 300 and a few scythes to fill up all those fan holes...then I can pretend I have a new computer for a while saving up for the rest.