I currently have an Athlon 5600+ and am looking to get a second 8800gt and sli it and upgrade my cpu. Should I get the phenom 9950 and overclock it, or should I wait, and save up to switch to intel and get a new motherboard and processor?

by your sig, I would wait until around x-mas and see the prices then

A 9950be performs below q6600, Intel's oldest quad, at stock, for 140w compared to 95w TDP, and don't oc nearly as well. It's a bad investment. You should wait and save up, especially with both AMD's and Intel's next generation cpus so near.

I've heard about the nahaleam, but what is amd working on? Will it beat it?

^+1

@dagger

That's unlikely, since AMD is using the same Phenom architecture with die shrink, while Nehalem use a new architecture that gives more performance per ghz over existing Kentsfield/Yorkfield, which is already significantly faster than Phenom.

They're not out yet though, so anything at this point is guess.

That is ALWAYS true. Buy when you have the money for what you want. (and your wife/girlfriend/fiancee says you can)

I agree about the not waiting but the OP has a decent system at the moment, and the new offerings are right around the corner. If at worst the the prices of current tech will drop

I looked on the ASUS web site, and in some reviews, but found nothing definite on whether or not your mobo can handle a 140W CPU.
Even if it can, as dagger points out, it may still not be a great idea. If you'll have the budget for a new Intel build, that's a much better choice.

C2D was released over 2 years ago. At that point if someone had asked: Should I wait for nehalem?, I would have agreed with you, but in this case it is a few months away and he has a pretty decent rig as it is now. Right now there is a chance that waiting could benefit him since we are not but a month or 2 away from knowing if it is worth it or not.

This is not the: "Should I get a 6400 now or wait for a 6420?" question. It is more of: "Should I get a p4 660 now or wait for C2D?" question where the better choice is only a month or 2 away. I am not saying that nehalem will give us the same jump in performance, but you should see where I am going with this.

Yes, playing the waiting game in technology is probably the wrong thing to do 80 - 90% of the time, but there are other times when waiting just a little bit longer could yield very positive results, and when you already have a decent system then it makes the decision all that more plausible. imo

Best,

3Ball

I agree, you should wait, if for no other reason then for the price drop. Although there is "always something new around the corner," it seems the corners come around every six months or so and it sucks getting something right before the industry gets around the corner. My advice: wait for Deneb and i7.

I'm not referring to the OP, but I just checked the numbers for this claim. I believe at stock, the Q6600 is slower than the 9950BE. Nothing signficant, but just thought that I'd correct a small misinformation.

Links here:
Gaming Performance:
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs [...] /17174.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs [...] /17175.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs [...] /17173.png

Real-life applications:
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs [...] /17158.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs [...] /17161.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs [...] /17160.png

Here's the only benchmark on anandtech I found where Q6600 beats the phenom.
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs [...] /17159.png

I would be looking at around christmas time. Should I wait to SLI also?

I say wait for both and then upgrade to which one is better for u

Will they be out by christmas time?