With the i5 out and benchmarks available... Whats better for gaming

i5 or i7?
are the 8x slots the vid cards a total killer?

and 1156 or the 1356

They perform pretty much the same in gaming, unless you have 3 or 4 GPU's, in that case the i7 outperforms the i5.

The i7 is still an overal better CPU, but for gaming you might as well get an i5 and LGA 1156 since they are cheaper.

I'm in 100% agreement.

For a mid-range gaming system with a single GPU card I would go with i5 or Phenom X3, X4, you can save a lot of money by avoiding i7.

Well I'm in 100% disagreement.

With the current generation of video cards 8x provides plenty of bandwidth for video cards, just look at the review on the front page it explains it all right there in the black and white. And it's not just Chris that says that read the [H] review of the Core i5 750 and says the exact same thing that X8 is more then good enough.

Thx man... was typing the wrong info in the search box.....

I agree. But with no competition for the higher performance parts they can charge that much. Some will argue they are under-charging for the Core i5 750, which is neck and neck if not better than the most expensive AMD proc that costs $50 more (although the AMD proc would be unlocked, which has extra value, but the Core i5 750 is much lower power, which also has an added value).

I'd like to think that most people buy chips in the $150 to $300 range for gaming systems, I will never spend more than $300, the diminishing returns just aren't worth it. Besides, the money is better spent on a GPU.

Well, the same thing happens no matter who you buy from. You buy something, then a few months down the line something better and cheaper comes out. The i7/i5 case seems to be a little worse though, because of the additional cost of the motherboards as well.

There is the Gigabyte MOBO

Or the Intel MOBO as well

And they have Combo Deals with both as well

my q6600 is 2000 years old in tech years. happy for the folks who'll end up with an i5 rig.