O.K., first of all, why are you buying an Intel system if you're not going to overclock? Until I read that little line at the bottom of your post, I thought, O.K., fair enough, this guy wants to squeeze the life out of an E8500 Core2Duo or something for maximum gaming pleasure, but since you DON'T want to O/C (I can't imagine why you wouldn't, but it's your prerogative not to).
The reason I'm saying this is because there actually suddenly becomes a strong argument to stay with AMD if you are specifically NOT going to overclock. I am talking about the Phenom 9950 here. At 2.6GHz stock, you're actually getting quite a lot of CPU for the money ($235.00). TigerDirect even has the A64 X2 5000+ BE on for $79 right now - a 2.6GHz dual-core CPU for 80 is exceptional if you're on a budget)
Although the Intel Core2Duo E8500 does give you somewhat better gaming performance right now for about $199.00, it has two important shortcomings compared to the AMD A64 X2 5000+ BE/Phenom 9950 route:
1st, it has only 2 cores, and although games and some other apps are more clock-rate sensitive than #-of-cores sensitive RIGHT NOW, that isn't going to stay that way indefinitely. New apps and games are becoming better optimized for more than 2 cores, and you'll eventually see the dual-core CPUs lagging the 4-core ones, even with slightly lower clock speeds.
2nd, ANY board you buy right now for ANY Intel CPU will NOT run Nehalem or later CPUs. That means pretty much whatever you buy on the Intel side, you're going to have to scrap the CPU, Mobo and probably, ram once you want a Nehalem or newer Intel CPU. On the AMD side, the strong likelihood is that the .45u AMD quad cores will be socket AM2+ and will almost certainly be drop-in compatible with current generation socket AM2+ motherboards. Thus, if/when you want to go to a faster CPU, AMD buyers now will be able to do so with their existing mobo/ram combos, but NOT Intel buyers. This might not matter to some people, but it does to me and others.
Just some thoughts in deciding whether to go Intel E8500, Q6600 or AMD X2/Phenom. Also, remember that if you pair that A64 X2 5000+ BE with a nice crossfire AMD motherboard, you'll save enough money to go for 4870 card instead of a 4850 card. That means you'll be able to spring for another 4870 card in about 6-8 months and be able to crossfire them, and it's pretty well common wisdom at this point that gaming performance is much more GPU limited than CPU limited, so the benefits of the $200+ CPU (Intel or AMD) start to look marginal compared with having over $100 more to spend on a faster graphics card. It means you can spend $300 on a graphics card instead of $200 for most people.
Just some thoughts from a long-time enthusiast.
Darklol said:
on AMD side I was looking at the 6400+ since I only wanna play games and I don't want to overclock. But E8400 is way better than the 6400+.
As for the board, I can't decide : P45, X48, 750i, 780i, X38 ?? Too many choices here. Like I said my price range is between 200-250$.
EVGA 750i FTW SLI X16
Asus P5E Deluxe X48 CF X16
Asus P5E X38 CF X16
And I'm looking at this :
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS4P P45 CF X8
Asus P5Q DELUXE P45 CF X8
Is there a big difference between using CF X16 or CF X8 ? Which card would you guys pick ?? Any other suggestions.
PS: I won't be overclocking