Phenom II X4 + 6970 or Sandy Bridge i5 + 6950?

[nuguai]

Hey all. I'm considering a new build to run Battlefield 3 on High, or custom high-ultra.
I've been reading the performance benchmarks for BF3 and from what I can see, very GPU taxing, while all quad cores ran the game comfortably.

In terms of which will perform better, should I get (prices in AUD, http://www.pccasegear.com):

Phenom X4 960T BE ($139) coupled with a 2GB HD Radeon 6970 (Sapphire $390, Gigabyte OC $400)

or

i5-2500K ($229) paired with a 1GB HD Radeon 6950 (Sapphire $280, Gigabyte OC $275)

Any thoughts appreciated.

 

[rex000]

100% for the second option.

1. The Intel Core i5-2500k is great for EVERY application, whether it be gaming or just multitasking. The price justifies the performance.

2. When you compare a 6950 vs 6970. The difference is not THAT great. I don't believe the price difference is justified with the small amount of performance you gain.

I'm not sure about the specs, but for less than $300 you could CrossfireX with 2x6850. I wonder how that would perform...

Heck, for $300, you could get a GTX 570... which is hear is much better than a 6970???

 

[dizzc]

Option 2 with this card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102945

Flip the Bios switch and overclock and presto! A 6970 for the price of a 6950. It's what I did and it works awesome!

 

[kai-fei]

I agree with the other two, definitely go with the i5. If you have a microcenter near you you can get the 2500k for 180, which Is what I plan to do.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

He's an Aussie so the nearest microcentre is 10000 miles away?
But another vote for the 2500k
Moto

 

[Outlander_04]

CPU is not important for BF3 . Even very light weight units worked well .
And to make matters even weirder the beta ran better and faster on a phenom than on the intel i5 .
That had to be an issue of cpu architecture because the i5 is clearly the better chip in most situations .

http://www.techspot.com/review/448-battlefield-3-beta-performance/page7.html

Even AMD's light weight Llano APU beat the 2500k on a 1920 x 1200 resolution .


So will you be using the computer for anything else besides BF3? If the answer is "no"
then buy the phenom and 6970

 

[lunyone]

Well I would probably go with the Intel 2500k w/the 2 gb 6950 and unlock it to 6970! If it doesn't unlock you will still be playing with a very potent GPU AMD based systems generally have better mobo's for the same $ that intel has. Look at what options you want on a motherboard a pick the one that fits your needs. Most AMD motherboards come filled with quite a few options. The only drawback is that current Bulldozer CPU's don't look like the best upgrade path ATM. This may/may not be a big deal to you, but it's something to consider.

AMD proposed build cost: ~$540 ($140 CPU & $400 GPU)
Intel proposed build cost: ~$510 ($230 CPU & $280 GPU)

Another cheaper option is to drop some of the cost of the AMD CPU build and get the 2 gb 6950 GPU (like mentioned before) and hope you can unlock it (which seems to have a good chance from what I've read). This would be the cheapest option for the performance in BF3 that your probably looking for.

The 2500k is a really good CPU and is hard to beat for the performance, so don't count it out.

 

[assassin123]

As you have two choices then leave the first one & go for the intel core i5 with a hd 6950 card because you can unlock it to 6970 later and the i5 will work quite good then the phenom II x4

 

[Wisecracker]

Tom's CPU Scaling in BF3

A PhII quad will be fine (along with a modded HD69502GB !!). If you follow the link, you will see that BF3 works just as well on two cores ....

[:jaydeejohn:5]

 

[Wisecracker]

Fine 'n dandy, thank yee :0

Hope you are well!