Intel or amd cpu FOR GAMING

Who's been telling you that the i7 crashes and freezes? I have an i7, and it is rock solid. No trouble whatsoever. The Phenom is a cheaper setup, the i7 will be faster. Either will work well though - they're both good chips.

It could be ambient temp related, as I know using the stock cooler on i7 with higher ambients, can be a no no

The person who told me builds custom pc's and he says that he has people coming in with them with probs but yeah I think it would be the temps

I'm pretty sure almost all the members at Tom's build their own PC's. The i7 is a great processor, but if you do not have nice heatsink and if your overclocked, that could probably cause a problem.

yeah he's a guy i usallly consult id be going with a high end air cooler for OCing possibly the prolimatech meg. temps in my room only reach about 80 max in summer since im upstairs right next to attic

If yuo use a good hsf, I wouldnt worry about any cpu, other than the normal ocing and temps.
To me, it all comes down to pocketbook, usage and ends there.
If an i7 is within your price range, I wouldnt rule it out. If , however youd want a few more things, or just better upgraded other parts, and want to save for that, and its strictly for gaming, saving on the cpu may do you well also, as like I said, for gaming theres cheaper alternatives

yeah im probably gonna spend 1800-1900 bucks on my build im gonna be doing pure gaming and some movies

Clearly with that budget going the Core i7 route easily is the way to go.I would only consider AMD for budget builds under $1,000 or less.Don't skimp on getting a cheap heatsink/fan either.Surprisingly in the Pacific Northwest of the United States where I live last month on just one day (which was a record) the temperature reached 104 degrees F.

That's true.. both are excellent cpus, but i7 is a lot better, but in other hand i have amd 940 and overclocked to 3.4 ghz and i can compare speeds to not overclocked i7 940, i know it has 3.0 ghz anyway for amd and it price it is awesome.. still in ddr2..
like CJL said both are good..

go with phenom 965 no doubt.. i7 920 is a bit outperformed by this chip and still you can get better gpu.. phenom 965 is better then i7 920.. no doubt

i7 920... beats the 965 in every way hands down. =/ (except maybe some benches that rely on ghz speed while you're at stock clocks)With that budget you can get a nice system, just throw a nice heatsink on that i7 and OC it to 4ghz (1.34ghz increase!!!), then laugh at Phenom-II and C2Q, don't settle for second best when you can afford it.

Or wait a little bit for i5, those are sure to throw the market through a loop, your call in the end.

I agree with Raidur don't be misled about the 965 BE.I recently obtained a 955 BE on sale last month and I fully recognize that Core i7 outperforms the 965 BE and 955 BE easily.I am only building a 955 BE system as an extra budget (under $1,000) system.In fact I am trying to keep the total costs under $800.

I havn't heard anything about i7 freezing tho they are a pretty hot chip ... so if an idiot put one in a cheap box with poor cooling then they get what they deserve.

If your spending the kind of money your suggesting then I recommend an i7920, a watercooling rig, get a 1Kw PSU and 6Gb of good ram - look for some specials on graphics card so you can get a couple under SLI or CF.

Look at the games you want to play and check the graphics reviews here which are pretty good - both ATI and NVidia have strengths on different games.

With i5 about to hit there will likely be a shakeup on the lower end of the i7 cpus - so it might pay to wait a few weeks.

Good luck !

The thread where I saw this was more aimed at overall heat issues, not the i7 messing up.
Overall, i7 is the best.
Gaming?, its just another contender

If the CPU just "froze" I'm sure we'd know about it already. The media love to slam manufacturers for anything they can, and end user reports would have shown this more as well. I'll pick the heat option as well.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/265310-28-temperature...
This thread is 1 example of a few. Its not Intels fault, but the mobo makers in this case, as the voltage is too high