Which is more cost effective?

[Nashsafc]

I have customised a computer deal on pcspecialist.co.uk for a computer all in one bundle for £1298. With this i get 2 ati 4890s and a phenom II 965 processor. I customised a computer using an intel i7 920 with same everything apart from motherboard, an additional 2gb of ram to make it 6gb but the same frequency ram and same brand. It came to a price of £1399. Would anyone say that the amd phenom II X4 965 configuration be more cost effective for gaming? When i play games, i don't have much in the background apart from some web pages, when playing Crysis would there not really be any difference visible comparing the phenom 965 chip to the i7 920? Maybe 2 or 3 framerates more, but for just gaming would i be better of with just a phenom, since anyway in all games i would be getting blistering framerates because of the two ati 4890s.

 

[mlcloud]

I believe that the i7 performs remarkably better when you're in crossfire or SLI. Seeing as how the difference between prices is less than 10%, you might as well go with the i7, in my opinion. Let's see what everyone else says.

On the other hand, do you plan to overclock?

Also, the most "cost effective" would most likely be building the computer yourself.

 

[Nashsafc]

I think the deal with pcspecialist.co.uk is very good. It also has a monitor, 16 pound speakers and 8 pound keyboard added to it. The monitor is 160 pounds, the 22 inch good quality LG one, theres also other crap lol added to it like norton anti virus and tv tuner, wireless internet card etc. So the computer on it's own without monitor, keyboard and speakers is 1105 pounds. I know the i7 is really good, and i am thinking that even if i overclock the phenom 965 it still won't be as good as the i7 920, because the architecture is genius compared to phenom's arcitecture. I'm also a bit upset with the phenom that they have to clock it 3.4ghz before it becomes just as good as the q9650 processor which is clocked 0.4ghz less. In my opinion the only AMD processor worth buying for games is the Phenom 965 or 955, because Intel have produced those i7 processors, they have really stepped up the pressure on AMD. AMD has kind of got lost completely, they're a year behind Intel in processor technology and they've just finally managed to compete with the high end core 2 quads, but not fully beaten them yet.

 

[Wisecracker]

Price the rig with a Phenom 955BE and see what the cost difference amounts to ...

 

[Nashsafc]

It's 35 pounds cheaper. How much better is the 965 over the 955. Is it worth it?

 

[Nashsafc]

Lol there is not really any competition between AMD and Intel for the CPU performance. Also i believe Intel are making a better valued processor, for price and performance i believe the intel i7 920 is much better than the phenom 965, it's only because the motherboard costs more, and pcspecialist only offers 3gb or 6gb of ram which it costs £100 pounds more.

 

[Wisecracker]

It's 35 pounds cheaper. How much better is the 965 over the 955. Is it worth it?

I have a Phenom II 940 at 1.336v (which is stock as far as I know) that's running 3.4GHz and 2200MHz NB.

At load in OCCT it hits 47c - 43c in Winter. Summer idle is 35C - Winter 26c.

I told yah all this because at the top end all the Phenom IIs generally exhibit the same behavior, same OCs at stock voltage, hit the same OC wall at the top end, etc.

At best the Phenom 965 may give you 200MHz or so above the 955BE (AM3) or 940BE (AM2+). For the most part the difference in gaming FPS will be minimal (could save money - or better spent elsewhere in your rig).

Hope this helped. Did it make sense? :lol:



edit: I fergit ...

Pushing 2 4890s at 16x12 or 19x12 with a Phenom at 3.4GHz it is doubtful you will see any difference at all ...

edit, again:

From Anand