Having a hard time deciding between AMD and Intel

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agentp

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Its been about six years since I built my current system, and after that point I stopped keeping up with the latest tech. Well a lot has changed since then and I've spent the last week reading up as much as I can. The problem though is on deciding what kind of CPU I want to base my system on!

I started with several options and narrowed it down to these two:

Intel i5 - 750 - $199.99
AMD Phenom II x4 955 - $163.99

I know that the i5 out performs the x4 but I'm not sure if its worth the extra $36. Plus my current system is an AMD and I've never had problems with it before so I kinda want to stay with them.

Suggestions?
 
Solution
EXT64
Depends on what you plan on doing. If purely gaming, they are pretty close and the PII is probably the better choice for the price. In other tasks, the i5 will take the lead. And finally, personal preference should be factored in. For example, for the build in my sig, a PII would have done fine; however, I felt like trying something new, so I went i5 (and I could get the i5 cheaper).

So, what I just put above is a very simplistic approach to answering your question. The more specific you can be with your needs/desires the better we can answer your question.
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EXT64

EXT64

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Mar 1, 2007
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Depends on what you plan on doing. If purely gaming, they are pretty close and the PII is probably the better choice for the price. In other tasks, the i5 will take the lead. And finally, personal preference should be factored in. For example, for the build in my sig, a PII would have done fine; however, I felt like trying something new, so I went i5 (and I could get the i5 cheaper).

So, what I just put above is a very simplistic approach to answering your question. The more specific you can be with your needs/desires the better we can answer your question.
 
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Solution
shravankale

shravankale

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Well I do own an AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE and it works wonders though it has some heating issues but they can be well managed by a good cooling system.AMD processors have a good clock speed. It's a good prcocessor for gaming and casual use or if u want to overclock. Whereas the i5 processor is based on complete different technology though it lacks some features of the i7. i would suggest you to have a look at i7(though it's horribly priced) otherwise the AMD Phenom 965 BE clocked at 3.4 Ghz is a good choice.
 
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Chad Boga

Chad Boga

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Lost Circuits has always been a bit of an AMD Fanboy site.

They recognised that with the pricing of the i5-750 being the greatest danger to AMD, they made sure they used a heap of multithreaded benchmarks so that the i5-750's turbo boost wouldn't be able to be used that much on single and dual thread workloads.

However the downside of this approach is that they showed off how strong the i7 Lynnfields were.

Jenny, I bought an i7-860, and going off that Lost Circuits review, I clearly did the right thing, didn't I?

As Lost Circuits shows, it would make no sense to save a few dollars considering the performance differential between PhII965 and an i7 Lynnfield.
 
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shravankale

shravankale

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The i7 does outperform all AMD processors but since u have a budget the best u could get is an i5 or save some dollars and get an AMD processor....then you can also invest those extra dollars in a nice gpu !!
 
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agentp

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Its going to be primarly, in order of importance: gaming, watching movies, music and browsing. I will be doing some SolidWorks on it, but not too often. My budget is <$200 for the CPU and I'm leaning towards the AMD because of the price and they haven't let me down thus far. The hardest part is to figure out if the $36 scales with the extra power.
 
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shravankale

shravankale

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With Phenom II processors you can game, watch movies, music and browse smoothly. It can also take up all the heavy tasks you want to do. Instead of going for the Phenom II 965 you could go for Phenom II 955 since 965 is an overclocked 955 with an extra 200Mhz clock speed. Just keep in mind one thing that you should also invest in a good cabinet and a good power supply unit. If you put up your hardware configuration here, it would be easier to give better suggestions.... :)
 
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Cryslayer80

Cryslayer80

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It's just too fishy... I mean, one night, I7 and PII were trading blows and the other, I5 was magically called a PII killer that, in some cases, in order to stay competitive is also an I7 killer on some sites...
 
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Mousemonkey

Mousemonkey

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If you're the sort of person who likes a gamble take a look at this.
 
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agentp

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I've been doing some figures, and I'm not really sure which benchmarks to base my decision off of so I did all of them. The i5-750 is about 13.3% better than the Phenom II but costs 22% more. Which doesn't help my decision at all.

In regards to hardware specs, I'm basing my system off of my CPU so when I decide that I can get everything else. Unless thats not the right way of going about things? Its been too long :(.
 
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roofus

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agentp, I have had the pleasure of owning both i7 platform and Phenom 2. No bad words to speak of either but in all honesty, I thought the P2 gamed a little cleaner. looked a little better, felt snappier. It ended up winning out for me because I really dont do much of anything else with my home PC but game. You cant go wrong here in any direction so price may be your deciding factor.
 
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Raidur

Raidur

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i5 has always been a p-ii killer. Once overclocked its a done deal.

Phenom ii will be enough for almost any gpu setup today, but i5/i7 will last a bit into the future. Look at scaling benchmarks from 2.0 ghz to 4.0 ghz and you'll see why.

OP: since your budget is under $200 (and if you don't live by a micocenter) then the answer is simple!!

Go AMD.
 
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Guest

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I'm at the same page with you on this one. I cannot decide myself... Before I just picked the 955 because I use the computer strictly for gaming. Now I can't decide between a x2 555 or a i5 for my next personal build. I figured if I wanted a budget build I should keep it that way, or otherwise if I'm going to get an i5 I know I'm going to have to fork over the cash.
 
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Raidur

Raidur

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Personal build for gaming?

i5 is good if you plan on having 5870 crossfire or better graphics before upgrading your CPU and/or do other things that are CPU intensive.

If not Phenom II will be sufficient, especially with a little OC. :)
 
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Guest

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Well from the way things are going, I'm probably never going to need a quad core. I usually play mmorpgs which perform just as well using 2 cores. Besides gaming it's strictly blu-ray movies.
 
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