Batman Arkham City on Radeon HD6770

A 6770 is good enough to play every game, maybe not on max settings at high resolutions, but will play them well enough.

CPU, for gaming, i7 or a fast i5.

^I have a backup rig running an oc'ed athlon II x2 240 and a 5770, it games just fine @ ~720p and higher

OP:

I don't think you need an i5 or better to game decently with a 6770 (5770) it would be nice but if your spending a minimal amount on your gpu I assume you don't have the $350+ to upgrade to an SB rig...

Well I'm not an intel-fanboy and I think they're pretty expensive, so I'm going with amd... I was thinking about a quad-core AMD Athlon, forgot the model number and speed, around the 2,8 or 2,9 I guess... or if can get alot more money a Phenom 955... we'll see

And I think the radeon HD 6770 or 6790 will be good enough, so thanks anyways  

anything to share or any tips?

I hear you; if your going for mid-range amd is just fine, if you want a high end cfx or sli setup then intel is the way to go imo...

if your going amd the only chip to get is the p2 955 imo, hopefully you can find one on the cheap or on sale... the quad athlon II x4's are weak...

For budget, Intel is pricier, but you really had a general question, which CPU for a gaming system. Intel runs games better, and is faster overall.

Take a look here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-overcloc...

^@OP and hang-the-9... I agree and disagree with you: Intel is superior, but for the price, one can build a cheaper low/mid amd rig if they want to game.... then again; I just pulled the trigger on an i52500k/z-68 setup and I am stoked to receive the parts soon....

that being said, I have really enjoyed gaming on my P2 955 and it has provided a ton of value throughout the years... imo it is still a great midrange platform to this day, but I feel that upon adding a second gtx 560ti that my current cpu will just not have the raw power and overhead necessary to feed to 2 gpus enough juice

maybe the OP can look into an i3 and a capable p67/z-68 mobo and then save up for ivy, the SB i3 chips are blazing fast in games for a dual core and often beat a stock 955, but when the 955 is @ 4.0ghz its hard to say which one is best; obviously intel has the advantage for updatability as I am putting a lot more stock in Ivy Bridge then I am in the forthcoming Piledriver...

sorry for rambling but these are my insights

Well i can run this game on high @ 1920 x 1080 with a 6670 with out any dx11 settings on getting above 30fps and on med settings with v sync off i get 60 fps so u should have no problem at all, u could even run crysis on this card as i can on mine and definatley MW3 as that game isnt demanding at all  

OP: IMO don't get an Athelon. At the least get a Phenom II X2, and a motherboard with "core unlocker". You might be able to unleash a full quad core!
EDIT:

Take a look at this deal:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?I...

i3 2120 is a great CPU. Just add your GPU and an OS (Win 7 64 bit) and you'll be golden for almost $600!

^+1 agreed. solid recommendation with the i3 2120, OP you should listen  

thanks for your reply... this forum is really helping. But what you said about the p2 955 opens a new question I actually wanted to start a new thread for. But since I only need one answer:

What CPU is better: AMD Phenom II x4 955 vs. AMD FX-4100?

both are quad-cores on a 3600 MHz speed, only caches are not the same. The FX-4100 is much cheaper and game-debate said that the Phenom is 42% (!) less powerfull in performance... but is this really true, or is this just some standard benchmark testing result and does the Phenom really perform better at gaming?

***** I live in the Netherlands, and stupid Newegg won't sell internationally  

Oh and just so that's said: I'm not a real hardcore gamer, and it maybe won't even be the primary use of my pc. I also like to do things like photoshop, software tweaking, that sort of stuff... so I guess I at least need a quad-core to handle things...

So please reply on my other post about the two processors... which one would be better for gaming?

Well, the thing is, the i3 is better than an X4 955 almost all the time.




http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-fx-812...

The FX 4100 and X4 955 do a little better in some other benches, but they aren't superb. An i3 is usually around the cost of an X4, so really whichever you can find the best deal on should be suitable, but I'd recommend going with Intel and later you can upgrade to an i5.

now speaking purely of gaming situations:

955 is much better then fx4100.... i3 does better except in games that need a strong quad, in dual core games, the i3 will beat it, but then again remember that the 955 can be oc'ed to high hell if you wish, the i3 cannot although its plenty powerful to boot... that is my 2 cents

at the end of the day save your money for another paycheck or two and get a p-67/z-68 and i52500k setup, that is really the platform you want imo...

you can get a motherboard such as this one:

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

the motherboard will allow for cfx or sli if you choose to down the road and the good thing is that the cpu will plenty ample to manage the overhead.
You don't have to go balls to the wall and spend $200 USD or more on a motherboard either the g43 is perfectly capable and actually recommended in one of toms SystemBuilderMarathon $1000 gaming PC!

and the i5-2500k for about $334 USD (I don't know prices in the Netherlands except for how much is a joint   ) which would be a way better use of funds imo, bc your still gonna spend around 200 for the amd or i3 parts and this way you will have a beastly platform to start with ...

I saw the msi g43 at microcenter for 90 bucks if you live near one..

"if you buy the best (or near to it) then you are never disappointed..." personal qoute

wow you guys really making it hard to decide, especially you jjb8675309 (no offense)

I don't know where you guys get the money for this stuff but the i5 2500K is almost double the price of an AMD P2 X4 955...

is intel really that much better? Well I guess since it's more expensive, you get what you pay for..? And how about OCing the X4 955?

But again, I'm not a real hardcore gamer, well, I would like to be able to photoshop smoothly and play not even really demanding games... do I really need a CPU that costs 334 USD or am I overkilling the whole thing... I actually want a fast system that runs everything I want like internet, photoshop and some games smoothly, I'm not a pro gamer... I don't know if it's worth the money to buy the i5...

man this is hard!

You think that the phenom II X4 955 would be strong enough to, let's take as an example, run Batman Arkham City in combination with a 6790 or even a 6850 (I guess the last one) and 8 gigs of ram?

Oh yeah and about OC-ing: the cooling in my case is really good, especially the CPU, so I guess I could beat the hell out of that Phenom, do you think that would help for the decision

I really don't want to pay to much for this computer, it's my first build and I want to build it around the end of february, just after my birthday (turning 15!) and in the beginnig of the holidays, so I'm trying to keep it on the budget...

GIVE ME ANSWERS  

 

The 2500k should be around $220, the 2600k $320...

The X4 is usually a good overclocker. I hate what Intel did with SB in terms of limiting OCing to the K cores, and not having a K version of an i3.

I think if you can still get the i5 760 and a P55 mobo you might find it a better deal than the phenom, because they are faster and can overclock.

But if not, I wouldn't turn my nose up to the X4 955. It's a pretty good CPU when you overclock it. Also AMD motherboards are really nice, usually with lots of features like USB 3, SATA 3, and 32 PCIe lanes which you only get on the top end Intel boards.

thanks wolfram23

this really helps... I was really confused by intel's high prices but they seem to be making great CPU's... maybe my next build  

I think I'm only stuck with one question: why is the Phenom II X4 955 better than the FX-4100, I mean: same cores, same speed, the FX only has less Caches but they're double the speed, and it's a newer socket...

o and thanks for your quick reply, we're almost chatting  

The problem is that the X4 has 4 unique cores, while the FX 4 has 2 unique bulldozer cores, which are 2 core pairs. A core pair is slower than a unique core due to sharing some resources, similar to Intel's hyperthreading.

This is also the reason why the FX 8 is slower than Intel quads. Windows will assign threads to core 0, then 1, then 2, etc, but since each core is a pair, it's actually assigning core 0a, 0b, 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, etc. It would be much faster to do 0a, 1a, 2a, 3a, 0b, 1b, etc...

So, anyway, the FX is two core pairs, not 4 cores.

This is a pretty good review of it:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-fx-812...

well thanks again

I'm going with the radeon hd 6850 with 8 gigs of ram and the Phenom II X4 955 and I'll overclock everything pretty hard... once I learned how to  

well I'm turning 15 february so there's time enough to learn everything before life get's serious... I've always been a fast computer learner...  

thanks you all

let's close this thread, at least if jjb8675309 doesn't want to add anything

so: honor to you jjb8675309: say something and close the thread  

sounds awesome im just assembling my z-68/2500k build as we speak, you will not doubt have a nice balanced system with the cpu and gpu you chose, enjoy!

thanks to wolf for explaining the differences between p2 and fx

shoot I should sell you my old board and cpu...

FYI, to get a thread closed, just select someone's post as a best answer. Then it will be marked Solved and a mod will close it.

Anyway, sounds like a really good starter build. Have fun with it! We're always able to help here at Tom's. Also I just posted a huge beginner's overclocking guide you can find either in the OC section here, or just click the link in my sig  

yeah I know about the closing  

thanks

when I built the computer I'll put on a thread with some pics so you can see how it turned out... thanks again for all your help, I now know what I'm going to put in