Trying to help someone upgrade and we picked out two systems and trying to decide. 4600 AM2 with Asus M2N32-SLI or E6300 with Asus P5N32-SLI SE. All other parts of the system will be identical with 2gb ram and 7900's in sli. The system would be overclocked as much as possable putting the AMD around 2.8 GHZ I figure (unless someone knows better) and who knows on the Intel because that board is rumored to be a poor overclocker but needed for video set up. We could change the AMD board but it would have to be under $200 to stay in budget and would like it to remain a 590.
Well, first the 6300 will be a littlw faster, but at 2.8 fr either chip, you won't really notice a difference in everyday usage. With SLI you will be fast enough with either chip to never see slowdowns, except maybe with Oblivion for the 4200+.
It's really a matter of which brand you want. I personally prefer AMD, but the choice is yours. 590 boards are pretty inexpensive in comparison to nForce 4/5 Intel, though.
He actually said 4600 which i think is the better choice. That should be able to make it almost to 3ghz(2.95) on air. Also just to throw this out there and hopefully not get flammed.... 4600EE?
Yeah, a little typo. It's the same basically at 2.8 but OC is not worth the effort. IF you turn off throttling and need it you fry your chip. Turning up the bus 10-20% is the most I would go - meaning between 220MHz and 240.
I personally am waiting for 4x4.