Edit - I keep doing my research. No need to read all this thouroughly. I just need to know how much better the intel chip is than the AMD one (from the bundles at the bottom), and if the mobo that comes with the intel bundle is a good mobo. I believe it has good features (2 PCIe 2s and 2 PCIe 1s, enough US, etc) but I'd just like somebody to confirm that. I'm think that first large bundle is a pretty nice deal, yes?
Thanks etk. My understanding of what the heck different mobo features actually do is limited, I need to do some research on that in particular. I'm also not entirely sure about how to convert AMD to Intel chips powers. Is a mobo with crossfire vital? I don't expect to neccesarily run two cards, what's the advantage of that. If I bought, say a 5850 or a 6870 in this rig, then in two years bought another one for very cheap and ran them together, would that be twice as good, or just doubly outdated? Can you just totally different cards together, or do you need to be symmetrical?
With that said, how good do you think these two deals are? The first has a lot of the features I'm looking it (the i760 2.8, the little faster HD, a quality power supply) and all comes bundled cheaply enough that I'd be able to buy a very nice video card to finish it off, or get a little cheaper one and save the cash. The second bundle is a little cheaper, has msotly the same stuff but an AMD chip. I assume it's a little worse, but I'm not sure how much. I DOES have 6 cores, but I know AMD<--> Intel isn't a smooth comparison.
edit* - I had asked a question here abotu vid cards (5850 vs 6870), but I found a comparison, and I believe I am right in thinking that the cheaper 6870 out performs the 5850 slightly, yeah? I know the 5870 is better than the 6870, but it's a lot more. I'm reading the 6870 is very very slightly high performing than the 5850, but is much smaller and more power efficient, and hey, it's a bunch cheaper too.
Here are the bundles:
#
Intel Core i5-760 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80605I5760
ASUS P7H57D-V EVO LGA 1156 Intel H57 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Thermaltake V9 Black Edition ATX Computer Gaming Chassis with Dual Oversized 230mm Ultra-Silent Cooling Fans VJ400G1N2Z Mid ...
OCZ StealthXstream II OCZ700SXS2 700W ATX12V v2.2/ EPS12V 80 PLUS Certified Power Supply
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL
for $630-$20 rebate = $610
The cheaper one:
* AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (Thuban) 2.8GHz 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor (Model: HDT55TFBGRBOX)
* ASUS Socket AM3 AMD 785G HDMI ATX Motherboard (Model: M4A785TD-V EVO)
* G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Desktop Memory Kit (Model: F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL)
* Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB 7200RPM 32MB cache SATA II 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (Model: ST3100528AS) – OEM
* OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W ATX12V v2.2/ EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80Plus Certified Modular Active PFX PSU (Model: OCZ700MZSP)
* Thermaltake Element G Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case (Model: VL10001W2Z)
$590-$45 rebate = $545 (plus you get a $15 newegg giftcard