Whats best for gaming?

Depending on the game, either the Core i5 750 o/c to 4GHz or the i7 900 chips o/c to 4GHz, depending on the game. IIRC, the Turbo Boost is double on the i5 than on the i7 900, but the i7 offers more bandwidth for graphic cards.

test drive unlimeted 2


may be gta (just because of mods)


wow if good

lord of the ring battle for middle earth 2

maybe sims

only problem is the Motherboard: Asus P7P55D-E LX Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard


cant do crosse fire   go for the i7 920?

also is Asus P6X58D-E Intel X58 Socket 1366 PCI Express DDR3 Motherboard a good motherboard

only problem is the i5 Motherboard bundle has: Asus P7P55D-E LX Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard


cant do crosse fire   go for the i7 920 with Asus P6X58D-E Intel X58 Socket 1366 PCI Express DDR3 Motherboard?

Phenom II 3.8ghz should run 5770 crossfire fine.

You'll have to upgrade to bulldozer when you upgrade GPUs but you should save a good amount on a crossfire board.

For gaming i7 is not worth the premium over i5. Even the 8x/8x slots should last through the 6 series ATI.

bummer cant find the 965@3.8 any more   go for i7 or i5 and why?

Because with i7 (1366) you're paying almost $200 more for a zero (~1%) performance (in gaming) increase over i5.

The main benefit would be the 16x/16x which give a 2% boost in performance for a 5870 over an 8x slot.

You do the math.  

Pick up overclocking bud, its mighty simple (for a moderate OC) once you learn what does what. Especially on those Phenom IIs.

Plus once that pre-OCed system goes unstable who's going to fix it?  

Doesn't matter. Those video cards aren't good enough to take advantage of any of those cpu's.

you can do cross fire with an 1156 motherboard....i have i7 860 with an asus p55d - deluxe motherbord with 2 5870 in crossfire !

Test Drive Unlimited 2 is the sole reason I decided to upgrade my system...but the game won't be out for another 5 months or so. It will definitely be worth the wait  

The Tech Report had a graph a couple of months ago which showed the best value of performance per dollar of a system.Wish I could find the link now but the i5-750 was the best per dollar and the Phenom II X4 965 was almost as good (very very close) whereas the LGA 1366 i7 systems although more powerful had more performance overall but were a little too costly.This graph was for applications,video,games etc.The graph showed that when one chose too cheap or too expensive of a CPU the overall system would not be cost effective.
Then again if your games are highly threaded perhaps the LGA 1366 i7's would be worth it.

looks like the i7 as the i5 bundle cant do sli or cross, amd has just well........ gone  



thanks for the help do you think the setup will run on a cm sp 700w?


i will make a 550 pc next year and try overclocking it  

5770 crossfire should run fine with room to breath on a quality 700w.