Hy! I want to buy a PC and i have a question : a Phenom 9500+a motherboard 790FX+Radeon 3870= better performance than an Intel Q6600+a motherboard X38+Radeon 3870 ?  Wich platform is better for and ATI Radeon 3870 ?
                                                                                                                                                                           Thanks

I think there were some benchies with this exact thing in mind. I think the intel system had a slight fps advantage but not much...
 
Does anyone have a link to this ?
 
But my guess is that it wouldn't make much difference as far as games go but the Intel will put the smack down in apps.
 

Well not only in apps but when OC'ing the Q6600 it will rock the socks even more in games. But really depending on what resolution you are running it more than likely will be up to the GU for the FPS. But the one thing the CPU will do is loading and physicis in games such as Crysis.
 
So a Q6600 running at 3.2GHz will run the physics calculations faster than a Phenom 9500 running at 2.2GHz.

I believe every Major Computer website has Phenom vs Q6600 reviews.
I would suggest starting there.

"Spider" is marketing.  I have yet to see a single benchmark that shows spider out performing their equals.  Its pretty much just a way for you to give AMD as much money as you can.  

I mean that on an X38 , Q6850 and 3870 obtain max 70 fps in Oblivion . If i have a 790FX , X4 9600 or 9500 and 3870 i could obtain 80 fps ? I saw this here   http://www.amd.com/us-en/0,,3715_15337,00.html    down , click "Watch now" . I dont want to OC my CPU and the computer will be for games .

i think it will be better since they are all built for each other so no conflicts will occur.

I would say its marketing hype. AMD once claimed Q6600 is slower than Phenom 9500, which turned out that Q6600 is actually faster than Phenom 9900. I would recommend you reading 3rd party benchmarks, rather than from AMD.
 
If you're using your computer mostly for gaming, then dual core should suffice. A 5000+ BE, 790FX, and 3870s will be a decent computer.
 
If you desire for quad core performance (you won't see any significant improvement in games by going quad), then Intel would probably be the better way to go.

 
Again, spider is nothing more then marketing hype AFAIK.  I might be wrong, but I don't think I am.  AMD isn't holding the performance of all these parts unless they are put in a spider platform.  AMD is having such problems right now that they can only dream of having anything faster then Intel right now.  (I'm not saying their stuff is junk, I'm just saying that they don't have squat on the high end.)
 
If the setup you listed for Intel gets 70FPS, then the AMD one would get less.  The 9600 < Q6850.  As was mentioned, the 9600 < Q6600.  (if we are measuring pure performance.)  It doesn't matter if you are using a 790 or a 680a, the 9600 simply isn't as fast as the 6850.
 
@teh_boxzor, what conflicts have you heard about with a 680a?  I haven't heard about any major problems with the K8/K10 CPUs, unless you count the L3 bug as one.  From what I know however, that even happens if you are using the 790 boards.  

The Spider platform consisting of all AMD components doesn't have to be faster. The idea is compatibility and stability and then maybe speed. At least these are the reasons why AMD picked it up - how they advertise it is another story.

Again, can anyone name any stability problems with using existing chipsets?  Can anyone point out a stability problem that exists between a CPU and a video card?  Maybe in the future it will allow something different/better, but at the moment, it doesn't allow anything new.

You should say "current" instead of "existing, otherwise i just don't know where to start my list...
Most problems arise between chipset and GPU, but CPU chipset compatibility can be messed up too. I remember that 945 intel chip based board made by asus that had this annoying bug of corrupting my HD data thanks to an error in the bios/driver. Oh, and there was that really pretty IronGate chipset by AMD back in the days - i still get a warm feeling just thinking about it.

Yes, yes, ok, current stability problems with existing chipsets.  I laughed a bit when you mentioned your 945 problem, as the harddrive isn't a part of spider.  (hear that AMD, you need to go buy Western Digital if you want mega performance from your products.)  I have heard of some chipset/video card problems, and that wierd issue with the 820 and the 865(?), whichever one couldn't handle the 820 multiplier correctly.
 
For the last several years, things have been pretty quiet on the compatibility front.  For the most part, you plug it in and go.  Most issues can be handled by a bios update.  At this point I wouldn't trust AMD for a "trouble" free system.  

That is hilarious!

Well seeing as you can buy a quad core Phenom for as little as $199, I would go with it and the spider platform. In gaming, your performance is mostly depending on your GPUs, CPUs don't really affect it much. In real world applications, if you're using multi-threaded software, you won't see a noticeable difference between them both (Unless you're counting the seconds of difference between them).

 
Just look at the Nforce 570/590 boards that could handle the Pentium D 820 only as a single core, yet the 805, 830 and even 840 worked in most cases. I hope AMD takes the platform serious this time. There was a time when they made their own chipsets. It was the dark ages and their chipsets all carried the plague...

The Q6600 is a bit faster than the Phenom, but that doesn't matter because the hard disk and the GPU will limit your fps before either of those CPUs comes close to 100% usage.
 
The Q6600 overclocks better than the Phenom, but you don't care about that.
 
The X38 will allow you to add a second HD 3870. The 790fx will allow that too, plus a third and fourth card later. Chances are, you'll want a second card some day, but not more, so again it's the same.
 
I would say just pick whatever is cheaper. The differences are not likely to matter to you, so why pay for them.

 
Here's a brief summary:
 
Phenom 9500 + 790FX motherboard + one Radeon 3870 is slightly slower than a Q6600 + X38 motherboard + one Radeon 3870. The Phenom setup is also less expensive than the Q6600 setup to compensate.

Common misconception - only thing that is easier is updating drivers from the same website.

don't hate. =[