Gaming CPU: i7 or phenom?

reason why i said other for the 955 is because of the 1055T on sale for 150 dollars MIR

other wise amd has the lower end and medium-upper end locked down with this, until intel get their head out of their asses and release a $300 dollar 6 core i7, this will stay the same, you can easily OC something, but not so much adding cores (unless it was disabled)

How can there be 10 boxes and only 8 choices?

I think your poll is a little bit flawed enzo. Ok wait I think I get it now...assuming the count as the box above it...

Oh anyway my evidence is pretty clear - last time THG benchmarked a bunch of cpu's, the i7 870 lost to the Phenom II 965 every time.

Every single time.

12/12 losses.

Now the 1090T is gonna be faster than the 965, or thereabouts. And we know the i7 870 is a faster cpu than the i7 930 and the i5 750 soooo.

I was a bit thrown by you not using a capital p on the Phenom first time lol

Even if we accept the 1090 is a little slower than the 965, we know the 930 is a little slower than the 870 too.

To lose all twelve benchmarks, and not only that but to lose to the x3 also? I agree with jennyh, there is something wrong with these i7 cpus in some games.

[1] First of all, the 870 got creamed by the 965 in GAMING. So let us concentrate solely on gaming benchmarks
Your statement that "the 1090T is gonna be faster than the 965" is then, categorical bullcrap, since THG itself confirmed that the 1090T is slower than the 965 in gaming. You are taking results out of context & quoting them at your will.

Fair enough.

Thing is, I'm not taking THG as gospel on anything. I've been around long enough to see THG's benchmarks make somewhere between very little and zero sense on many ocassions. That's why I take them over the whole. I mean...I read every single review on Thuban this week. ALL of them. I also have a very good memory.

I'm not saying the 1090T is definitely ahead of the 965 BE overall all gaming benchmarks. But I think it is. In fact, as there isn't much holding me back from counting the totals up, I'll do just that.

You would prefer an 870 on 1156 over a 930 on 1366?

I'm only answering/explaining answer 1 for now (at work):

Keep the Phenom II 955.

AMD has done a marvelous thing for gamers with this chip. At its price range it is easily in a league of its own. High stocks make it good for non overclockers and overclockers can do it on lame-o hardware thanks to the unlocked multi.

If you want to include overclocking, then yes but do not compare overclocked to stock for value. If you are going to overclock the 965, also overclock the i5. Do not do something like comparing the 965 overclocked to a stock i5.

Does anyone else think there was something wrong with toms review of the 1090t? The reason i say this, like i said before, is because when they overclocked the 1090t it performed worse than stock which makes nooooooo sense whatsoever unless there wasn't enough power getting to the board. Clocked at 3.4ghz, it should perform better than a 965.

Ok, part 2. i5-750 vs Phenom II 965

Lets start with price.

The 965 is currently $184, and i5 is $199 on "newegg.com". Factor in the ~$40 premium on comparable motherboards and i5 is $40-65 more expensive.

*Note* Microcenter(.com) sells i5-750's for $150, but this doesn't apply to everyone as this is a walk-in price only and store locations are limited. *Note*

These 2 chips appear to run pretty similar in gaming.

Some games favor i5, some favor the 965. The differences are sometimes significant, but usually not enough to warrant one over the other. Unless of course this is the only game you plan on playing.

Here is a game that favors Intel over AMD.

As you can see the difference even the Q9400 @ 2.4ghz beats the 965, but the game is still playable on both chips.

Here is a game that favors AMD over Intel.

As you can see the 965 is able to take on even the i7 extreme, but the game is still playable on both chips, again.

On many setups, you will not be able to tell the difference between i5 and the 965, here is an example in Crysis using a 5850.

As you can see the difference is insignificant.

So is the slightly more expensive i5-750 worth it? It could be.

For those of you that need or will need 5870 crossfire or better, it seems i5 makes more sense. Take a look at these benchmarks when there is more GPU to play with.

Remember, this is with 5870 crossfire. You will need a LOT of GPU power to tell the difference between these CPUs, but the difference is there.

Something worth noting. If you are one of those with an eyefinity or 30" setup using a resolution of 2500x1600 or more, Phenom II seems work even and sometimes a little better than the i5-750 (however nothing significant). Here are those same last 2 benchmarks we saw, but in the 30" resolution.

Another thing to note is 1156's lack of full 16x dual pcie lanes. You are stuck with 8x/8x or 16x/4x if you use the i5-750. This is a disadvantage compared to AM3's capability of 16x/16x, but it could be argued that 8x is more than enough. Lets see!

On a 4x 2.0 slot the 5870 loses 5% and the GTX480 7%. Meaning a card needing twice the bandwidth of a 5870 would only lose 5% performance on an 8x slot (technically). If you ask me Phenom II AND i5 will be bottlenecked before the 8x slot is (significantly). This brings me onto my next point. Upgrade path.

If you go with i5 you'll currently have an upgrade path of an i7-8xx. Pretty much HT[hyper threading] (not including clocks/multis) is all you'll gain. We were all expecting Sandy Bridge to be 1156 compatible, but late news shows that our expectations didn't hold much water. I don't believe anything is set in stone, but as the looks of it Sandy Bridge will not be compatible with 1156.

AM3 however looks to be getting BullDozer support (that doesn't mean EVERY AM3 motherboard), so this could be plus over i5 depending on the out-come.

So there you have it. Due to the slight price difference the Phenom II 965 could be your chip of choice if you decide to use a single high end GPU or dual mid range GPUs.

If you are using dual high end GPUs or a dual GPU high end like the 5970, i5-750 could be your game. Do remember however, if you are using a super-high resolution the GPU will again be the bottleneck (this will change with higher end GPUs, but by then we'll all probably be on newer CPUs hehe) and the Phenom II will work just as well as the i5-750.

Another thing I left out is overclocking. Both chips will overclock to about 4ghz, and the 5870 crossfire benchmarks I have shown are clock for clock. This is a fair comparison for those planning on overclocking, so use that for your overclocking info needs.

Oh yeah my vote. I voted for the i5, due to the higher IPC. I'm a GPU junkie and I would oc the 750 to 4ghz and run 5870 crossfire gloriously. Then hopefully have enough IPC for the next gen.

Phew.

F

There was definitely something flawed with tom's benches that time around. It didn't quite reflect what other reviews were showing, in terms of gaming.