A good CPU for gaming

Meh I was going to say the core i5 but ahh ya .. amd ... meh I'd rather poke a gater with a stick...  

Which 3.1Ghz do you have? Phenom II X2 555, the Athlon 64 X2 6000+, or the Athlon II X2 255?

With an A64X2, the 635/440 would perform quite a bit better.

Though with the other 2, you will actually decrease performance by a bit in select games and only see a real performance gain in CPU intensive games like GTA, BFBC2, etc.

Whats the Graphics card you chose?

dragon age can use 4 cores, as well as some "new" games like you said, so a quad core seems like a good idea. the best quad core around 150$ would be the X4 955 ( i have it, love it) although you can get a underclocked version for 140$:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

I have a 6000+

And my graphics card is an HD 4830

its on an am2+ system i assume. see, in that case, id recommend upgrading the gpu. the gpu is what really affects gaming performance, and you wont see a MASSIVE jump in performance going from that to a x4 635. Also, id rather get a good gpu with the 150$, wait till the end of the year, and then upgrade to whatever intel and amd have out, BD and SB.

id recommend this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

and if you take advantage of the MIR, maybe get a good heatsink and OC the 6000 to make it less noticeable.

6000+ is AM2, and dont expect to OC the 6000+ over 3.2Ghz, its almost at the limit for K8.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite... seems like a good deal. Free L3!

the only problem with that is that he would also have to buy a new motherboard and ram. and he can still OC it a little bit, any extra is always helpful. but for 150$, id say buy that video card now, wait till the end of the year to buy a new cpu and motherboard/RAM.

Nope, as long as he has a halfway decent board that supports AM3, he'll be fine.
The 945 has a DDR2 controller in it as well.

i know that, however am2 support for am3 cpus isnt something id bet on. whats the board though?

AMD is Releasing a Phenom II x6 1045T that overclock 3 used cores by 500mhz while underclocking the other unused 3 to 800mhz! All within the 95Watts limit. Will be released sometime in august or september! around $200 6 cores !

don't u like intel......?

he asked for AMD, and intel doesnt have much at his price range. so in this case, no.

Isnt that what the 1055T is already?

yeah, i thought thats what the 1055T is, 6 cores, 200$?

personally who is gonna need those 6 cores.. there r hardly any applications and games they use them..... what's the point on spending so much?

future proofing for 1, and they are still useful for a lot of things, just a lot of software programs dont use them, yet.

no its more wattage 125watts with no turbo boost unlike the newer edition 1045T!

what did you say this turbo boost did?

Whoops, I just realized I posted the graphics card I have now, rather than the one I was planning on getting. I haven't really decided on a GPU yet, I just wanted to make sure that I find a CPU that's at least as good as my current one at playing games.

whats the budget for the gpu?

I Would Say Any CPU Thats A Dual-Core Or Better That Is At-Least 2.6 GHz, And Beyond That The CPU Dosent Matter THAT Much, What Matters MOST Is The Amount Of RAM (Nowadays I Wouldnt Reccomend Anything LESS Than 4GB) And Your Graphics Card. Look At My Specs, I Have NO Problem Running ANY Game On The Shelf Today.

Id Say Go With An AMD CPU And Use The $$ Save By Buying A Non-Intel CPU For Other "Goodies" Such As RAM And A Better Graphics Card.

Youd Never Notice The Differance Between Any AMD Or Intel CPU As-Long As My Reccomendation Above Is Followed. I Will GAURAUNTEE It.

while that is somewhat true, normal users wont notice the difference between much of anything, but sometimes an intel vs cheap amd cpu can be minutes saved of downloading something. Thats why though, IMO, at most budgets, AMD is better for gaming, as you have the lower temps and power consumption, and so you can get low temps and a lower psu, and you can spend it all on the GPU, which really matters for gaming.

Sure you can play any game out there but not great. A 9600 gso isn't as fast as a 9600gt and I know for a fact that one even bogs down even in Wow.

To the OP, whats your budget for a GPU? For $225-$250 a 1gb GTX460 is the way I'm going.

thats what i was thinking, if its about 150$, Asus CU 5770 (or wait for 450 and 455), about 200, get the 460, and about 100$, get the 4850/5750.

500mhz boost to cpu during intense proccessing cycles of the three cores used, while the remaining unused 3 cores get scaled down to 800mhz each all within the watt limit of 95watts.

The Holy Grail of Video Cards is not so much the price but the creativity of the cooler with the art that is inscribed on it! Also whatever is bundle with the graphics card is a gift to those who choose and find the one that was meant to be discovered!

With the art thats embeded on the gpu cooler? LoL - yeah whens the last time you pulled your gpu out so someone could look at the pretty picture. <grin>
I like your humor! I'm still laughing!

Laser Etched=Inscribed Art
Embedded=machine soldered RAM so unremovable

Thx this Questions are to humourous, so anyways I picked a 5830 $220 XFX!

hahahaha    

My budget for the GPU is around ~$150 give or take a little. If im able to get a job this summer then my budget will def go up. The one I really had in mind is this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

The only thing that bothers me about it is that it has 128-bit memory interface, while I believe my current card has 256-bit. Dunno exactly what that means, though, its probly not that big of a deal.

So returning to my original question, although i dont mind all the advice on GPU's :-), it looks like my best bet for my $ range is either this:

AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

or this:

AMD Athlon II X4 635 Propus 2.9GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Hmm... I gotta say 40$ seems like a lot just for an extra 0.1 GHz and L3 cache. From the little knowledge I have regarding L3, I wouldn't think its going to help that much.

this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

is a better (or equivalent) 5770 for less. and your previous card has a 256-bit gddr3 interface, this has 128-bit gddr5 interface, gddr5 is 2x as fast as gddr3, so they are equivalent, however the card itself is much faster. My advice would be this, if you plan on overclocking and unlocking, try out the 555, if you dont, get the 635, and if you want a happy medium, and IMO, best value, get the x3 440 (it can unlock into a x4 athlon, and some even "grow" L3 cache and turn into a 945) And L3 cache is quite useful for gaming amongst other things.

You might want to read this Tom's comparison of <$150 cpu's for gaming:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-processor-co...

Note that the i3-540 price will be reduced in July to $115 to compete with AMD.