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S

sasquatch

n00b
Joined
Mar 10, 2005
Messages
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Well, it finally happened. My beautiful custom build from 6 years ago has finally decided to take a crap all over itself. Bottom line is: I need to build a new system on a budget. I'm thinking the Phenom II X4 955 is the best bang for the buck, but I've seen some impressive statistics about the Intel i7 920. The price difference with mobo and ram is about $250. Would I really notice that much of an improvement with the Intel chip over the AMD?

Computer usage: used to do some heavy gaming, but since my pc is 6 years old that hasn't happened lately. I'd love to get back into it but don't need everything on extreme settings. Other than that the only processor-intensive stuff is a little Quark work and some dvd ripping.

Suggestions? Comments? I'd like to get parts ordered today or tomorrow so I can get this thing built before my old comp decides to fully kick the bucket.
 
I don't know why I completely forgot about the i5. Need to look at the board prices, but it does seem that it's a decent middle-of-the-road choice for price/performance. Any other suggestions?
 
As much as I love my AMD 720 and it performs amazingly OC'd especially in FSX and ARMA2.

If I were building today I would go with the i5.
 
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Are you near a Micro Center?

Asking here will usually get you a system that is overkill, unless you need to rip a lot of DVDs and edit video. It depends, do you want gaming not on extreme settings on a budget? Or do you want to stretch one out for 6 years? 2 years and still be fierce?

What kind of monitor will you use? Which Windows? 7 x64? Will you play demanding games, or ones like TF2?

This is probably one of the most doom and gloom places for anything that hasn't been released in the last 6 months besides i7 and those boards. That said, there do appear to be deals in the For Sale forum for parts that seem more obsolete than they are. LGA775 is "dying" here but it will take a while for i5 and i7 to even break 25% of Intel units running.

It's up to you, DDR3 has come down in price and but a lot of folks (in a relative sense) are offloading DDR2 800 or 1066 for about $10 a gig.

Another way to think about it is maybe save now and what's new now will be "boring" in 6 months and cheaper (like the Phenom II 940 is). AM3 and the Athlon II 2xx Regor or Phenom II 550 Callisto is the least objectionable, and AMD's definite socket. Unlocking, too. Core i5 has more maximum power but costs more. Same for i7 900. These days it's like an engine in a car, the V6 and V8 will both cruise around city streets the same.
 
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