E8400 or Phenom9600?

[ctam009]

Hi guys, having trouble which CPU to pick...those are about the same price range in my country (New Zealand)

That's only the 1st question though. If I do go with E8400,

which mother board should I go with? (GA-EP45-DS4P or ASUS P5Q Pro)?

and which company's 9800GT 512MB should I go with? (ASUS or Gigabyte)?

Cheers!!

 

[ahslan]

Well I've heard about ppl having problems with the 9600...if going with a phenom, you definitely want the ones that that end with 50's (9x50) because those dont suffer from TLB...

what will the computer be used for? mainly gaming? what resolution do you plan on playing on? what your budget?

I wouldnt recommend getting a 9800gt...its just a more expensive 8800gt...

 

[xx12amanxx]

E8400 is way faster than the phenom 9600 i cant help ya on the motherboard question though.

 

[Nik_I]

E8400 is way faster than the phenom 9600 i cant help ya on the motherboard question though.

the E8400 seems like the more logical choice, but if you plan on working with alot of multi-threaded applications, then a phenom might not be such a bad idea. take a look at the article that was just posted on tom's today. and as ashlan said, stay away from the 9600. dont buy any of the 9x00 cpu's. only even consider the the 9x50 cpu's. the former ones have the TLB bug, which is apparently very rare anyway, but the 9x50's are a newer stepping which is always a good thing.

 

[yesiwillwin]

i'm with intel on this one. E8400 is a real nice chip.

as far as the graphics card goes i'd say asus. i have two asus cards and i have had no trouble at all.

i'd go with the gigabyte board. real nice and sturdy. you plan to oc?

to be honest i would dump the 9800gt and grab a nice 4850. an asus 4850, E8400 and the gigbyte mobo should be a nice match.

if you decide to get the 4850 and want to do crossfire later then maybe an x48 mobo is where you want to be. for single video card the gigabyte mobo you have in mind should do just fine.

 

[ctam009]

Thanks for all the great feed back guys, in response to the comments you gusy made:

yesiwillwin:

1. Is it a good ideal to mix Mobo/video cards from differnet manufacturers?

2. 4850 actually cost 25% more then 9800 GT in my country....so if their perofrmance are similar....ya, is 4850 cheaper then 9800 GT in your country?


Ahslan, Nik_I:

Yup...I will stay away from the Phenom, kind of having my bias leaning towards E8400 for it's 45nm architecture anyway, hehe..



Ahslan:

I will be playing mainly WOW (in 1600-x1200, cause I got a 22'') and upcoming Starcraft II and Dialbo III, you think the build will suffice these?

P.s....you watch Gundam? Just ou of curiosity, because of your name

 

[1971Rhino]

1. Is it a good ideal to mix Mobo/video cards from differnet manufacturers?

This is usually not an issue because there are standards in place. As long as the Mobo manufacturer and the video card manufacturer adhere to the same standards (most do) generally speaking it shouldn't matter, the brands don't have to match. Besides some Mobo's and video cards are built so similar to the reference model for a particular GPU or Mobo chipset there may not even be a difference between brands other than the label.

The real key thing here is chipsets. If you go with an nVidia video card like the 9800 GT and you plan on using SLI then you'll want to get a Mobo with an nVidia chipset that supports SLI. Of course if you go with SLI then you can't mix video card types...in orther words you'll need two identical 9800 GT's to run SLI.

With ATI video cards if you want to run CF you'll have to have an Intel chipset Mobo that supports CF.

If you only plan on running one video card whether it's ATI or nVidia then a Mobo with an Intel chipset seems to be the way to go. Even though I use an nVidia chipset...I'd have a real hard time recommending one to someone who wasn't going with SLI.

 

[yesiwillwin]

Thanks for all the great feed back guys, in response to the comments you gusy made:

yesiwillwin:

1. Is it a good ideal to mix Mobo/video cards from differnet manufacturers?

2. 4850 actually cost 25% more then 9800 GT in my country....so if their perofrmance are similar....ya, is 4850 cheaper then 9800 GT in your country?

you can mix and match components as you wish. dosen't matter who manufactured the product. i had an asus mobo with an evga vid card and now i have a gigabyte mobo with asus vid cards.

the 4850 can cost 25% more or 25% less in some cases over here. just depends on the make and model you choose.

i prefer the 4850 over the 9800gt. if i had a choice it would be the 4850. i'd say the 4850 out performs the 9800gt. i used to be a hard core nvidia fan but when the 4850 4870 came out i switched. its just a matter of prefrence.

 

[Winly]

i will go for the E8400, its faster than the Phenom. either mobo its good GA or ASUS "It really depends on you" for the video card im not sure cause i've never bought a video card from ASUS of GA, but look at the specs and see which one is a better buy fro you.

 

[Winly]

but i will go for a ATI video card, maybe the 4850 or the 4870 if you can.

 

[ahslan]

if you're playing WoW, the your build will definitely be overkill (I played WoW for a little bit on my old rig which was a single core athlon with an ati x1800xt video card and it ran perfectly smooth at that resolution)...if you pair up the 8400 with a 4850, your rig should be able to play Diablo II and Starcraft II easily (blizzard always tries to make their games playable on a broad range of computers...they're no crytek..). The reason why we recommend a 4850 is because it burns the 9800gt hands down...the 9800gt is simply a renamed 8800gt...so if you're planning on getting he 9800gt, try looking for a cheaper 8800gt...(with prices of the 8800gt falling like crazy, a lot of ppl, at least over here in the US, have been buying two 8800gt's and putting them in SLI...)