Phenom II X4 925 or Athlon II X4 640

Since this will be an all-new build, you may want to use the sticky on asking for new build advice. Your answers to the questions in the template will help us help you build a nice machine, whatever your budget.

As per the Tom's gaming CPU charts, both the Phenom II X4 925 and the Athlon II X4 are on par with each other.. i.e. both will offer almost same amount of performance..

Thank you for the inputs. And the chart was really helpful. I was hesitant to post on the new build forum since it's just the CPU that I haven't decided on yet. It seems to me (but I'm not sure since I'm new to the site) that Athlon 640 is better than Phenom 925, but Phenom costs more. Kind of confusing.  

If its not much difference in price, get the Phenom. More cache and more room for overclocking, and its already faster per clock rate so gains in overclocking would be greater.

I do have an HEC Power 480 now, will that be enough if I'll the Phenom with 5770 Vapor-X?

Get the PhenomII, it has more cache and is faster clock per clock than the Athlon II. It has a greater overclocking headroom due to its lower base clock as well.

Theoritically, a 480W PSU should be enough for an overclocked Phenom II and a single HD 5770.. Practically however, it depends on the technical specifications of the PSU.. HEC is an unknown brand for me so its quite natural for me to recommend you to stay away from it and get a PSU from one of the known brands (like Corsair, Seasonic, Antec) instead..

I think I'll be getting the Phenom. Unfortunately, those PSU brands are quite hard to find at least from where I live so there's not much of a choice there. By the way, this might be off topic but with my choices being Phenom + 5770, how much power do you guys think those two would consume?

Considering a highly overclocked Phenom, an overclocked HD 5770 along with the rest of the standard components, a good 450W PSU will be enough.. Consider getting a 550W unit for extra headroom and/or any video card addition(s) or upgrades in the future..

a phenom II and 5770 would consume under 300w, see the cart with a more power hungry test system then yours.

ocz, xigmatek, enermax, and silverstone also have solid units if corsair, seasonic, antec are hard to find. your current PSU should suffice though since you have 33a on the 12v rail.

With an older HEC, that's a claimed 33A. Even if the reality is more like 26-28, it ought to still be enough though. When considering a replacement PSU, look for one that has full range active PFC (no little voltage switch) and 80+ certification. 80+ tests under unrealistically cool conditions, but at least the unit could output 100% of its claimed rating for a decent period of time (so it was warmed up some), and did it efficiently. Higher temperature would affect those, but most likely efficiency first. Antec, Seasonic, Corsair, Enermax, XFX, some FSP, a few (only the latest) Coolermaster, and the latest NZXT should be decent.

If you are not video transcoding ...

AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Callisto

(put the extra cash toward the HD6850)

i have no delusions of that PSU being able to provide 33a on the 12v but that setup really only needs 20-22a tops

True enough :-).

better to have phenom II x4 955..

I just saw the prices on GTX 460 768MB dropped and I'm considering it now (though it requires 2 6-pin PCI-e power connectors). Also, I saw an abundant supply of Phenom 945 in a local store here which I'm also considering. I know most of you recommended to get a more decent PSU but I'm really on a budget. So with a Phenom 945 and GTX 460, would my PSU cut it?

On paper, yes, but I wouldn't trust it. When stressed, the rails of cheap PSUs tend to wander out of spec, possibly damaging attached components (often over time; not immediately).

Thanks! I'll see if I could make some money that would for a new PSU, but if I couldn't I'll stick with mine and maybe replace it after a month.