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Cyberpower’s Gamer Dragon: Can AMD Bring The Game?

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  • AMD
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June 25, 2009 6:00:37 AM

Cyberpower sent us a factory-overclocked Phenom II X4 955 system wielding two Radeon HD 4890 cards in CrossFire. We pit the formidable rig against our previous System Builder Marathon Core i7 machine to see if AMD can deliver a viable gaming alternative.

Cyberpower’s Gamer Dragon: Can AMD Bring The Game? : Read more

More about : cyberpowers gamer dragon amd bring game

June 25, 2009 6:34:16 AM

Great article. It will be quite hard for anyone to shout after something like this. Granted, there will surely be the 'you can build it for less' crowd but I think all in all this should silence some folks.
Score
7
June 25, 2009 6:40:14 AM

Would have been nice if the video cards where the same in both.
Score
7
Related resources
June 25, 2009 6:42:51 AM

I have to wonder what would happen with a 790FX board and RAM running at CAS 7. Those are two glaring problems I see with their build. I priced out the items to make the build work better and still came out at $1300.
While it's an indictment of AMD clearly, seems like you shouldn't write it out of the SBM just yet.
I was actually surprised to find some reasonable 790FX boards, as long as you don't need one of the big two brands.
Also, other tests seem to contradict this. Sure, there is going to be some FPS difference, but there should not be so much.
Score
10
June 25, 2009 6:51:35 AM

The lower cas ram wouldn't change anything.Having the 16x16 pci-e slots of the 790fx vs the 8x8 of the 790x.....doubtful it would make a big difference,though it would be nice to see if there would be a difference.
Score
0
Anonymous
June 25, 2009 6:51:52 AM

Buying parts online I was able to get a fairly decent i7 920 setup for only $80 above a similar X4 955, the setups both had parts that would allow them to reach maximum OCing results and both had equivalent ATI/NVIDIA GPUs. AMD may have had a competitive price advantage a month ago but right now the i7 920 is better without question, in fact the $80 increase didn't even apply for me since the GTS 250 I bought off newegg for $135 came with COD4 and COD:WaW and the i7 920 came with HAWX for only $280 and an unopened HAWX goes for $40 at gamestop(they sell it for $50) and CoD:WaW also came in an unopened case that would have been sold to gamestop for $20 if I didn't keep it.

X4 955 buyers beware, you're getting equivalent performance to a Q9550 setup for a $100 premium and if you're looking for an upgradeable setup the 1366 socket is a lot safer investment.

P.S. - Sorry if the grammar and such is terrible, I just woke up to get a late night snack and check my e-mails but saw this and felt a need to post.
Score
0
June 25, 2009 7:02:24 AM

Cyber Power comes to the rescue.......
Score
0
June 25, 2009 7:33:52 AM

The point is if you build a system without any "Cyberpower" ready made premium priced stuff, AMD platform is cheaper and makes more sense, so again comparison seen here is unfair. Of course you wanted to justify your previous choices but in a misleading way. Having to the max (almost 1ghz) over clocked i7 only and comparing self built cheaper system to premium retail system just underlines to fact that you have taken sides.
Score
-9
June 25, 2009 8:00:21 AM

I Still say biased. Why not give the overclock a go and present the results with the note that it may void warranty. You also overclock the SBM core i7 system.
Also as proximon points out, this build does not say anything. You can yourself piece together something better at a lower cost, therefore the price comparison is not a good one if you want to point out the difference between AMD phenom II and Intel core i7.
Score
9
June 25, 2009 9:05:51 AM

My points:
1. Comparison of two different graphics cards. Based on completely different systems you speculate that i7 is much better. If the i7 is so clearly better, it is important for readers to know how much. Test it on the same computer (same graphics card) and prove how much better it actually is. Till now I only see relatively small advantages of i7 over phenom or intel quad limited within few percents only in Tom's review. Seems to me Tom is just hyping i7 (regularly "forgetting" comparisons with core 2 quads).
2. Power usage. How the hell is possible that overclocked i7 takes significantly less power than non-overclocked one? That smalls to me and says that there is something rotten in the benchmark. I do not think readers should trust this review too much and rely on it when buying new computer.
Score
14
June 25, 2009 9:44:38 AM

@supergroover,mcvf

In SBM article before, many reader states that the prices different between Phenom system and Core i7 system can be used to purchased "stronger" GPU.

Assuming frreerr_hardware (no 5 post) statement is true, the difference is only $80 and ATI 4890 is STRONGER card than GTX 260 core 216
The cheapest ATI 4890 in Newegg is $189 after MIR
and the chepest GTX260 core 216 in Newegg is $149 after MIR
The difference is $40 for a card and $80 for a pair (SLI or Crossfire)
So the comparison of Phenom system using ATI 4890 and Core i7 system using GTX 260 core 216 is well justified.

And please do not start talk about overclock.
The standard (not overclocked) Core i7 system (2.66 GHz) manage to wins some cases to the overclocked Phenom system (3.6 GHz), that's almost 1 GHz difference in clock. Do you really want to compare their performance in fully overclocked system like frreerr_hardware's system ?

Typical Phenom 955 (in average) can achieve 4 GHz when overclocked and so does typical Core i7 920. Remember this is in SAME PRICE system (according to frreerr_hardware). Logic dictates the the Core i7 system will crushed the phenom system if both is fully overclocked.
Score
9
June 25, 2009 10:23:02 AM

goose man: "stronger graphics card", as stated many times by Tom's, applies only to the chosen game title. Are you absolutely sure that used Nvidia card is in all presented game titles slower that presented ATI? If yes, could you point me to the site (Tom's or other) where they are fairly compared, because I did not have any information about their relative "strength" when reading this review.
Score
-1
June 25, 2009 10:43:15 AM

For me the results are clear :

At stock. They offer similar performance. The AMD system has a slightly better video card. The Intel has a slightly better processor. But this is theorhetical at best.

Clearly not fair, as certain stuff/programs will favor one platform over the other.
Score
-4
June 25, 2009 10:45:34 AM

Also, I've noticed most of the benchmarks/games used favor processor speed over videocard speed.
Score
5
Anonymous
June 25, 2009 11:05:17 AM

Awesome Case, have just last week finished re-building my PC into this case, and the cooling is second to none , especially with a couple of Skythe Kaze Maru 140mm fans on the side!

Would have loved to see the i7 Figures if under this cases chilling winds, would have blown the AMD system even further backward I think!
Score
-3
June 25, 2009 11:06:54 AM

Thing is lately i`m starting not to trust games anymore that has Adds at startup with Runs great on Intel or Nvidia ... just wonder if they got payed to put that add at startup wonder what other things they got payed to "optimize" the game. And this article is so wrong ... custom home build vs Retail build ... oh boy and comparing in the end 2 CPUs that have different videocard setup ... i`m not saying that P2`s > I7s in performance but this test is way wrong.
Score
6
June 25, 2009 11:08:56 AM

The only good thing that comes out of this article is that you can build a home PC for less monney and better performance than retailers, but don`t use it as a CPU brand comparation.
Score
11
Anonymous
June 25, 2009 11:42:52 AM

You guys aren't getting the point of this article. It is to point out that IF for the price you saved with a P2 vs an i7, you went and bought better graphics cards (GTX260
Score
1
June 25, 2009 11:58:19 AM

So pretty much the $1300 DIY comp stomps the $1740 prebuilt comp. No surprise there but I got to hand it to Cyberpower, it appears as though they have improved their cable management since the last time I've seen.
Score
4
June 25, 2009 12:01:33 PM

You did pick games that have always heavily favored nvidia gfx cards... much less balance than normal. You guys usually give us a show of both the nvidia optimized and the AMD optimized games but this time just nvidia..
Score
0
a b À AMD
June 25, 2009 12:15:01 PM

All in all it should just be a SBM vs Cyberpower article. I do not think there is any clear i7 evidence here.

You should take those 4890's and try them in the SBM system (X58 has SLI and XFIRE right?)

Then when you redo the tests, you can see how much was i7 and how much was "They Ways Its Meant To Be Played" tax(if any). There should be a larger selection of games used to show ATI and Nvidia friendly ones.
Score
6
June 25, 2009 12:17:13 PM

It keeps repeating itself. Tom's tries hard to convince everyone to stay away from amd and ati. Only in the monthly budget videocard articles Ati cards win.

2 different video cards, are you joking? What's the point, even if 1 is better and you want to show, how can you compare cpu's when you have more variables. The first law in scientific comparisons is reduce the variables to a minimum. Too many variables will only ask people to call bias yet again. There should have been a 3rd system to check on.

The big question remains, what did you want to test. A that system from Cyberpower can or can't deliver and if so, why did you lash out at AMD P2, if the Cyperpower system failed. Where is the self build system with good stuff.

This is just too much yet again. It's too hard to take anything serious when you keep things unfair for either of the companies. I can't use this comparison yet again.
Score
3
June 25, 2009 12:23:11 PM

It does start to show where i7 starts to have an advantage...specifically in CPU-intensive games with no less than a pair of GTX-260 or 4870 videocards in SLI/X-fire, and even then sometimes only when driving low resolutions noone would run such a graphics combination on. Yeah, I thought that part of the test was a little weird...but it does show that as time goes on i7 WILL distance itself from both Phenom II and Core2Quad, and that is an important point.

However, while i7 prices have steadily become more reasonable, what still deserves note is that an AM2+ system based around a 940BE and DDR2 RAM still comes in ~$150 below that of i7. You just have to ditch DDR3 which doesn't help Phenom II anyway (for that matter it often doesn't help i7 either). And as ironic as this may sound, there's a very real possibility that socket 1366 will end up having LESS of an upgrade path than AM2+/AM3.

Consider: It's already official that the current i7s on LGA-1366 are going to be gradually phased-out, and it's increasingly looking like the socket will be reoriented toward server applications. As far as I've seen there's no guarantee LGA-1366 will see ever 32nm chips in anything other than server chips, and Intel's first 32nm chips are going to be dual-cores (i3?) for LGA-1156. In the meantime processors that were initially used to represent the performance of i5 are now being called i7 for LGA-1156. System builders thinking their new LGA-1366 board is gonna last through 5-years worth of processor upgrades may have another thing coming. In the meantime AMD oddly enough has announced that they're releasing 32nm chips in 2010, even though Bulldozer isn't supposed to arrive till 2011. Will AM2+/AM3 actually see 32nm domestic chips? Who knows really with that one.

Now I could be overthinking with the LGA-1366 deal, but it's not stopping me from holding off on i7 for the next little while. Fortunately with the graphics setups and resolutions I happen to be running (both a Phenom II and a Core2 setup) i7 isn't presenting any advantage yet anyway. But this multiple socket deal has seemed funny to me for some time now, and every new article I see on the matter seems to reinforce my suspicions.

And it's not like it hasn't happened before, either...AMD pulled similar antics with sockets 754/939/940/AM2.
Score
3
a b À AMD
June 25, 2009 12:25:51 PM

I thought this article was pretty decisive. It wasn't saying that the PII is a bad system; it showed that the i7 was better. For grins, it would be interesting to see (added to the same benchmarks), the i7 system with the pair of 4890s; nevermind the cost, just to remove the graphics subsystem from the CPU comparison. I'm thinking it would be sad...BUT...
Going to start a discussion thread in the Forum, as it gets a little OT.
Score
-2
Anonymous
June 25, 2009 12:26:38 PM

AMD had no answer to Core2 and continue to have no answer to Corei7...why is this so hard for some of you to grasp?
Score
-2
June 25, 2009 12:32:49 PM

nukemasterAll in all it should just be a SBM vs Cyberpower article. I do not think there is any clear i7 evidence here.You should take those 4890's and try them in the SBM system (X58 has SLI and XFIRE right?)Then when you redo the tests, you can see how much was i7 and how much was "They Ways Its Meant To Be Played" tax(if any). There should be a larger selection of games used to show ATI and Nvidia friendly ones.

It's no secret that two 4890 is faster than 2 260's so clearly the i7 victory boils down to cpu limits - no need to move the cards to confirm this.

As for which games run best on which graphics - that is almost impossible to test. There have been incidents of 'nvidia branded' games running better on some ati cards - but then again running worse on other ati cards, and possibly not running at all on some cards from both brands. The problem is that while it may run well on a g92 with 1gb ddr3 it might not run well on a g92 with 256mb ddr3 - or perhaps it'll run perfect on a 4870 but not on a 4890 because the developer has made some specific improvements and hasn't released a patch to recognize the newer 4890 to be treated like the 4870
Score
0
June 25, 2009 12:44:29 PM

kevin1212http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 278-9.htmlToms very own review of the phenom 955, gaming benchmarks... now that is a test with the same gpu, is there a big difference?


SLI, SLI, SLI... when will you people get it. If you are going to Xfire or SLI, get an i7, it is FAR superior. If you're going with a single card that superiority is negated and you might as well save some money and buy the X4.
Score
0
June 25, 2009 12:46:07 PM

neiroatopelccIt's no secret that two 4890 is faster than 2 260's so clearly the i7 victory boils down to cpu limits - no need to move the cards to confirm this. As for which games run best on which graphics - that is almost impossible to test. There have been incidents of 'nvidia branded' games running better on some ati cards - but then again running worse on other ati cards, and possibly not running at all on some cards from both brands. The problem is that while it may run well on a g92 with 1gb ddr3 it might not run well on a g92 with 256mb ddr3 - or perhaps it'll run perfect on a 4870 but not on a 4890 because the developer has made some specific improvements and hasn't released a patch to recognize the newer 4890 to be treated like the 4870


It's easy to remove this problem. Use the same card. That's how you should test different systems, remove all variables until you have only 1 left or maybe a few.

You can't compare a cpu, when the gpu is different and one system uses a ssd vs raptor and different kinds of memory and stuff like that. Some things you can't prevent to be different. You can't compare a P2 on a x58 board, so you have to accept that there will be 2 different motherboards, but you can get the same videocard. So why test different ones.

If you want to compare complete systems, just say complete system A beats complete system B. We suspect but haven't tested the difference in CPU, because we didn't OC or switch parts around. They love to take shots at AMD/ATI
Score
1
June 25, 2009 1:10:33 PM

It's articles like this one that make me lose my trust in Tom's Hardware.
Comparing home build vs retail PC from Cyberpower is outrageous. One thing: is a big difference in price. Second: Why would you use 790X which has pcie 8x for Crossfire?
I'm not saying Phenom2 is better than i7. i7 beats phenom2 955 in most of the tests. Ok. But how in the world can you compare gaming performance on two systems that are different in so many ways.
Allright. I'm out of here.
Call me fanboy all you want but you've let me down Tom's. Now even Anandtech's tests seem to be fairer.
Score
4
June 25, 2009 1:31:47 PM

Wow, there are a lot of dumb fanboy comments here that simply defies logic.

Fact is, if I am building a decent gaming system, I'll get an i7 920, cheap mATX, 6GB ram and a single 4890. Fastest for the money is my motto and I don't really care if AMD/NVIDIA royalist thinks I am not supporting competition.
Score
-3
June 25, 2009 1:34:14 PM

A lot of people seem to be missing the point that they are mainly reviewing the system that CyberPower sent them. They are probably bound by contract that they cannot alter that rig. They compared it against the SBM machine to give a reference point.

On the price comparison, it is unfair to the SBM machine to factor in a retail license of vista, an OEM (for nearly half the price) would have been more realistic - these are easy to buy and what CyberPower would have used.

The graphics are not really a problem, it has been shown that pretty much hands down, 2x 4890 will always beat 2x GTX 260 - in any game. So the fact that the i7 did win here, is a testament to its abilities.

And out of curiosity, since the absolute performance is undisputed - Intel has more - are so many people AMD fan boys just because they are poor? I have always erred towards higher performance and therefore have always chosen Intel despite slightly higher prices (up to 20% more sometimes). I go with whoever is better for the price in graphics (given they are much easier to upgrade) and just recently upgraded from 2x 4850 to 2x GTX 275 and haven't regretted it one bit. Nvidia is known for its better cooperation with game developers as well as superior driver support.

I just find it amusing that so many people are still finding things to complain about here and continue to say that Tom's is biased. No matter what they do an article on.
Score
8
June 25, 2009 1:36:43 PM

kevin1212http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 278-9.htmlToms very own review of the phenom 955, gaming benchmarks... now that is a test with the same gpu, is there a big difference?


Something doesn't smell right. These 955BE tests on Toms show the PhII and i7 trading blows but the differences are negligible. It's likely the video card was the bottleneck in that case - but I have a hard time believeing theat the 955 would be holding back two 4890s that much in the Cyberpower system.
Hardforum tests demonstrated that when clocked similarly, even the x3 720 and the x4 810 were pretty much keeping pace with the i7 920 - and that was with four 4890s running in crossfire. Yes, the i7 won each test, but not by anything near the margin shown here save for the Flight Simulator X comparison.

Score
5
Anonymous
June 25, 2009 1:38:10 PM

Gaming rig tested with only 4 games :)  Ouch!
Are you sure the 4890s were working in Crossfire and that they were receiving enough power ? :) 
Like always ,Nvidia and Intel are Toms preferences.
Score
3
June 25, 2009 1:40:41 PM

I'm Confused... I'm probably still waiting for the coffee to kick in...

So.. AMD's CPU is 1/2 the price of the i7? Right?, but they put in more expensive video cards... OK makes sense. Those 4890's when benchmarked on systems with similiar CPU's compared to the 260's can beat them pretty well, not soundly, but they do best them for the most part. Yet in here, in this system... Well I say it is a total FAIL. Same Price... 1/3 to 1/2 the performance... does the Phenom really bottleneck the system THAT badly? That even though the GPU's are more powerful the CPU brings it down to 1/2 performance compared to cards that they can usually beat? I am shocked I did not see this outcome.
Score
5
June 25, 2009 1:42:58 PM

Correction: the hardforum tests were done with two 4870x2s.
Score
3
June 25, 2009 2:17:19 PM

You guys ever have to deal with Cyberpower's customer support regarding a warranty issue? Oy vey.
Score
0
June 25, 2009 2:47:06 PM

Next article Tom's should run is a medical one on the mental illness afflicting AMD diehards to admit the truth--even when it stares them in the face. For the record, I'm not an Intel or AMD fan--I simply want the best that I can work with at the time; and AMD's time of being on top has long since passed.
Score
-2
June 25, 2009 2:48:09 PM

origosisI'm Confused... I'm probably still waiting for the coffee to kick in... So.. AMD's CPU is 1/2 the price of the i7? Right?, but they put in more expensive video cards... OK makes sense. Those 4890's when benchmarked on systems with similiar CPU's compared to the 260's can beat them pretty well, not soundly, but they do best them for the most part. Yet in here, in this system... Well I say it is a total FAIL. Same Price... 1/3 to 1/2 the performance... does the Phenom really bottleneck the system THAT badly? That even though the GPU's are more powerful the CPU brings it down to 1/2 performance compared to cards that they can usually beat? I am shocked I did not see this outcome.


Not really fail to AMD. Compare to Intel offers, there is no high-end AMD offerings at the moment. If ones has that kind of money to build SLI/CF system, s/he would probably have no problem buying Core i7 with a $250 motherboard. None other system can compete with Core i7 with it comes to SLI/CF performance. Phenom II is the delayed answer to Intel's 45nm Core 2 CPUs. They have no answer to Core i7/i5/i3 until 2011.
Score
1
a b À AMD
June 25, 2009 2:51:20 PM

Well, as an AMD user I am disappointed but then I knew the PII wasn't the performance leader. That's a given, we've all seen articles that show i7 superiority. I think Cyberpower should take a look at anandtech's article about ddr3 latency, CAS 9 is not going to show this system in the best light. Better to equip it with DDR3 1333 CAS 6.

For prefab, its an ok system, but not what I'd choose either.

And for people on a budget and building their own system, AMD still makes alot of sense. As the article points out, even with crysis maxed the cyberpower system has playable frame rates. The bottom line, no the PII does not keep up with the Core i7 920, but then its not priced the same either. But does it compete? Well, yeah against similarly priced products it does compete. But for people who don't care what brand processor they have, AMD can offer a similar experience at a lower price.

As for shutting people up, I am assuming you are referring to people who defend AMD and consider it a viable option. And I don't see where this article shows that a budget SBM with an AMD processor is a bad idea. I'm thinking an X3 720BE, or if that isn't budget enough the PII X2. At any rate, there are those of us who would like to see AMD represented somewhere in the sytem building marathons. And with WIN7 fast approaching, it doesn't make sense to include processors that can't do virtualization, so ya may as well throw those out right now.

I don't think an article about a system sent for review from one manufacturer should be the definitive basis for determining AMD's competitiveness or inclusion or exclusion of AMD products in future SBM builds.
Score
4
Anonymous
June 25, 2009 2:52:59 PM

pretty nice carrying handles there!

It'd be nicer to see the Phenom2 on factory default settings (non overclocked).
That would do more justice to the power requirement and energy efficiency test!

The results where as I expected, better comparable to a system having a quad Core processor.
Score
0
June 25, 2009 3:04:22 PM

buzznutWell, as an AMD user I am disappointed but then I knew the PII wasn't the performance leader. That's a given, we've all seen articles that show i7 superiority. I think Cyberpower should take a look at anandtech's article about ddr3 latency, CAS 9 is not going to show this system in the best light. Better to equip it with DDR3 1333 CAS 6.For prefab, its an ok system, but not what I'd choose either.And for people on a budget and building their own system, AMD still makes alot of sense. As the article points out, even with crysis maxed the cyberpower system has playable frame rates. The bottom line, no the PII does not keep up with the Core i7 920, but then its not priced the same either. But does it compete? Well, yeah against similarly priced products it does compete. But for people who don't care what brand processor they have, AMD can offer a similar experience at a lower price. As for shutting people up, I am assuming you are referring to people who defend AMD and consider it a viable option. And I don't see where this article shows that a budget SBM with an AMD processor is a bad idea. I'm thinking an X3 720BE, or if that isn't budget enough the PII X2. At any rate, there are those of us who would like to see AMD represented somewhere in the sytem building marathons. And with WIN7 fast approaching, it doesn't make sense to include processors that can't do virtualization, so ya may as well throw those out right now. I don't think an article about a system sent for review from one manufacturer should be the definitive basis for determining AMD's competitiveness or inclusion or exclusion of AMD products in future SBM builds.


Well said. I concur.
Score
1
June 25, 2009 3:05:51 PM

Nice artical.

So why no DX9 benchmarks again?

Most of my freind including myself just play FSX (dx9/10, new massive addons like Hong Kong (22fps) and NYC-Manhatten (16fps) will bring any system to its knees.
But since I also make huge photrealistic scenery areas (100-200GB) manipulation of massive hi-rez image in photoshop tax the cpu and memory sub-system and all this has to be rock steady.

Cost of my little 3.9ghz system:$1085

MB Asus M4N82 Tri SLI $169 - Negg
CPU Phenom 940 solid at 3.9 - $189 NEgg only could do 3.78 on old M3A78-em
HS Prolima Megahalems 2x 120mm x 38mm 1100 rpm $85 Frozencpu.com
Mem G.skill 2x 2G pc9600 5-5-5-18 $85 Negg
GPU BFG GTX285 OC $298 Bbuy
PSU Thermaltake 850W $100 Negg
HD WD 1t CB $99 Negg
Case Antec 300 $60 Negg
Score
-1
June 25, 2009 3:12:08 PM

Quote:
Wow, there are a lot of dumb fanboy comments here that simply defies logic.

Fact is, if I am building a decent gaming system, I'll get an i7 920, cheap mATX, 6GB ram and a single 4890. Fastest for the money is my motto and I don't really care if AMD/NVIDIA royalist thinks I am not supporting competition.


When AMD is not here I would like to see if you can still get the performance that you are now getting from Intel for the same price or not LOLZ.
Score
0
June 25, 2009 3:45:43 PM

I'll just say this the i7 offers farther future upgradeablity
and if I'm gonna spend a Grand or better I would want that as much if not more than actual speed[ you could buy faster i7 cpu later] but even the slowest i7 out performs the best AMD........that say's a lot
cyberpower is where I got my rig good people , but I'll build my own next time ,
Score
-4
June 25, 2009 3:53:31 PM

The findings were with wider disparity than shown previously on Toms and most everywhere else. There has to be several reasons for this, and using the P2 as the fall guy isnt the best, IMHO.
If other sites, and Toms each find things closer than this bench does, it speaks volumes to Cyber Powers abilities to make a clean system that just performs, more than the cpu alone.
This disparity is somewhat unique, the games chosen werent the best in diversity, and its home built vs system build, where a few have already pointed out , they werent using the wisest components.
In the end, to leave it all on the back of the cpu just isnt a good enough explanation, and CyberPower needs to take more of the reasons towards its perf, and not to be shuttled only onto AMD
Score
6
June 25, 2009 4:29:08 PM

I don't think most peoeple are being fanboys when they support the phenom II series... its the price/performance they offer in gaming. Most other tasks, you will see the core i7's and even the core 2 quads winning in performance, but aren't they more expensive? In gaming however, is there really that big a difference? I suppose in this article, there is, but for the first time, i'll have to say that Toms Hardware isn't the ideal source for this info.

I would love to see a comparison of a Phenom II X3 720 oc vs an i7 920 oc... with the same gpu this time, and with a few more titles. But wait... with that p2 (now going for $120), how about that Gigabyte 790X AM2+ for $110 and 4GB of ram for about $50. Now take that i7 920, with the cheapest possible x58 board ($200), and we all know most people will get 6GB of ram ($100). And look at that price difference... $300. Don't really care what else each system has.. as long as its the same.

Then, compare the performance, price and power consumption, and we would see who wins when it comes to VALUE. Intel/Nvidia have the performance crown, there is no question about that, but AMD/ATI have the value crown, and these days, thats what everyone is looking for.
Score
1
Anonymous
June 25, 2009 4:56:55 PM

Ad hominem attack of the century... Cyber Power(and boutique builders in general fail), but hey, let's blame AMD instead... I seem to recall that i7 wasn't substantially better for gaming than Core2 (or later Phenom II) when it came out, but hey, that's what selective benchmarks and bad journalism are for. You can only call AMD the bottleneck when running identical systems, there are a million variables(many of them intentional) created this unprecedented spread in the benchmarks, but you're squarely blaming AMD.
Score
1
June 25, 2009 5:04:00 PM

programmed4gaminWell said. I concur.


I don't concur. Let's not forget that the supposed "cheaper" option is the AMD build. Right? Yet, Tom's i7 build here is actually significantly cheaper.

I think the best conclusion you can draw from all this, after applying a healthy dose of common sense, is that you can spend a little bit more on the i7, less on your graphics subsystem, and STILL get superior performance. In my estimation that's nothing but a sterling recommendation of Intel's offering.

Brand loyalties have nothing to do with this decision.
Score
-2
June 25, 2009 5:15:02 PM

wow, so many people missed the point of this article.

I appreciate the review.
Score
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