does phenom have what it takes? what is your expert advice

Phenom is great if:

1.) You don't OC
2.) You play multi-threaded games (Very few are out there)
3.) You have an AM2 board already

If all of the above matches you, Phenom is the way to go. If even one doesn't, Intel will suit you much better, preferably the E8400.

Despite being an AMD fan, and a Phenom owner, I couldn't honestly recommend it if you're looking for a good price/performance ratio, and want it only for playing games.

I bought mine because clocking cores independently could help speedup my groups research by not fighting for servers with another 10 groups at school. It's running Linux at the moment.

However, if you're buying this for a good gaming performance, go for Intel *grinds teeth* If you do have specific application, or planning to use it more like a multicore workstation, _AND_ the benchmark shows that Phenom performs well - e.g. Mainconcept H.264 encoder, even UT3 (because those guys did multithread beyond 2 cores), then maybe it's worth it.

But yeah, if you have an existing AM2 board, and a Phenom drop in works, sure...

I do have some strange booting problems in Linux - mind you that's usually after I've tinkered with AOD in Windows.

If you're an AMD fan, wait for B3 or 45nm version.

Its too slow and there are no multi-threaded games(good games)...so no.