Athlon II X4 620 or Phenom II X2 550 BE 'Black Edition'

Here is a review that includes both chips so you can see the performance - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Athlon_II_X4_620... - they are pretty close when it comes to gaming but the 2 additional cores still performs a bit better than the L3 cache on the dual core - so the 620 is a bit better choice (unless you get lucky and get a 550 that can enable one or both of the disabled cores in whiuch case it wqould be better !)

unless gaming is your primary concern, i would agree with the 620 as the better choice.

the l3 cache give the 550 an edge for gaming, but the extra cores make the 620 better at everything else.
as JD said, there is even a possibility of unlocking a 550 to a quad (i did), but it isn't guaranteed. you're better off expecting a dual core.

Since you want a processor that can play games, i suggest that the 550 is better. The difference between the 550 and the 620 are marginal, the only time you will see a noticable difference is in gaming and a higher clock speed and bigger L3 give the x2 550 the advantage.

I just purchased a new graphics card and processor (ENGTS250 1gb, AMD x2 550) i installed the processor first, check the difference to my x2 5200+ and it wasnt noticable in games, the much more noticable difference came when i installed the graphic card maybe 10x better than before my previous 9500GT.

Noise is indistinguishable between the two as allmost all AMD prcessors have the same havesink/fan on them, also for overclocking the "black edition" will be better.

any other suggestions guys? say a different CPU altogether?
AMD or INTEL don't really matter to me as long as it's overall value at that pricepoint

It really depends on your budget, the athlons ll x4 620 and 630 will give you great multi tasking power and a nice upgrade path for cheap, the 550 is cheaper than both and provides speed and the chance to unlock it to a quad, on the intel side at that price point you are looking at the core 13 and 15 dual cores, none of which is worth getting in my opinion, i think that has time progresses quads are going to become norm thus you will be better off getting one now, so if i were you i would consider getting an athlon ll x4 620/630 or if you can add some more meoney a phenom ll quad as well.

I would have thought that the Phenom would garner more suggestions becuase to the highler clock speed and that it's a Phenom

Thanks for the link, JDFan
from the looks of things, the Athlon II X 4 seems to be the better all-arounder and even outpaces the 550 in most of the games even just a little bit
Power consumption isn't it's forte but I'm liking that at the very least cooling isn't a problem with it - something that a lot of my colleagues and friends keep saying and me keep pointing out that AMDs no longer have heat issues


still... feeling like the glass is half empty here if I don't have a Phenom sticker on my case  

Thanks again y'all