AMD X4 or X6 core

In games, the X6 provides no benefits over the X4 and for the price of an X6 look into a sandy bridge build, it will perform better for about the same amount.

The quad is better all day long. In my 2 gamers I use the 955/965 the thuban has nothing on them for games. Both of the cpu's listed will be tottally dated come second quarter(roughly July) When Dozer comes out. Sadly I'll be abandoning mine then if the dozer is solid...or waiting until august for the sandy-e.

A sandy build (p67) would likely be more at least in the i5/i7 k series.....much more.

Phenom II Quad. I'm running an x4 965 right now, and does absolutely everything I could possibly ask it do. Honestly, for an 'average' price gaming build, I'd still personally go with AMD - sure, Intel has some decently priced SB processors, but then factor in the added cost of an LGA 1155 platform in general and the price will slowly keep on rising.

An added thought: People will argue that a comparable Sandy Bridge processor will be noticeably faster all around. Bullshit. I tried out a few of them, and there's ASBOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE OUTSIDE OF ACTUALLY MEASURING IT. Unless a couple seconds of boot time and loading things like Photoshop are worth $100 more to you (which doesn't make sense because a faster HDD will make a difference an order of magnitude more significant), then a fast Phenom II Quad will work just fine for you. If you enjoy blowing money on benchmarking, then you're a Sandy Bridge person.

You have to understand that people around here get unbelievable joy out of telling other people that numbers say their processor is faster. God, this post is going to make so many people mad, but it's true...

/expensive processor hatred rant

im thinking the same,i was going to build a core I5 2500k system but i decided to cut my budget and AMD fits into that better,a few changes to mobo cpu and case will save me 400-$500,thanks for the advice

i see your point,i am a pc gamer basically,if the processer does the job well for me and is cheaper,well thats the one for me,thanks

Snag a PhII955BE and any one of these or maybe one of these, or possibly one of these.

Just make sure it has a black socket  

yes coz the prices you quote are in the USA and i live in australia,i beleive the US prices are cheaper

Maybe you should have done something that actually benefited from a faster CPU?

All these CPUs are overkill for everyday uses (or average gaming)... people don't buy them for windows/photoshop to run faster (unless they're uneducated). *sigh

PsychoSaysdie must be on crack, cant realize we all dont live in the USA, for example by me:

2500k - R1980
P67 mobo - R1393
G.skill DDR3 1600 - R571

total : R3944

Phenom 955 - R1406
790GX mobo - R1227
G.skill DDR3 1600 - 571

total : R3204

If i was on a budget, that difference will make me either get a 6850 (with the intel setup) or a 6950 2gb (with the AMD setup) and then which one will offer the better gaming? ofc you know the answer to that

+ not 100% sure here but isnt the intel setup triple channel? so then you need to buy another stick of RAM, then with the money i saved on the AMD setup i can get a 6970.

@the OP, get the quad core rather, games hardly use 3 cores and will take a while until they use a full 6 core. That phenom quad will anyway be more than enough.

Nope. That intel setup (P67, H6x that run the 2nd gen Core i's) is dual channel. (that would be the lga 1336 your thinking of.   although you can run those setups in dual channel. your not required to have 3 sticks of ram for a system.)

Although overall, as the masses have said, the x4's will be better for you than the x6 (Unless you plan on doing anything cpu intensive in the future).

Use the extra money on a better gpu and/or a SSD. Those 2 things will make a system much faster than a cpu with faster/extra cores.

(remember this factor for computers, (in most scenario's) speeding up the slowest part on your computer will make a computer many times faster than speeding up an already fast part.)