darknirvana21

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Feb 24, 2012
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Hey I am kind of new at all of this, but I am looking into getting a gaming computer. A friend of mine has been a die hard intel fan since creation while my brother is a fan of AMD. I've looked at benchmarks and read up on both platforms, but I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions. This pc will be used primarily for gaming, things like skyrim, swtor, or MW3. How do these benchmarks translate into gaming performance?
 
i5-2500k
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jonpaul37

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If I were you, I would shoot for an Intel gaming platform. As bart said, the 2500K SandyBridge CPU is the money-spot of current CPU's. AMD has some decent Phenom II x4 CPU's but it's a dying platform and their current platform release has proven to be unstable at best. Now, AMD video cards are a different story and have been coming along nicely over the years and competing with Nvidia quite nicely.

As of right now, my primary RIG has an Intel CPU and an AMD Video card and I am very happy!
 

jonpaul37

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I believe the OP was looking to see what is better between the two.

@ memadmax, i don't think it is a matter of how hardcore they want to be on gaming but i don't think i have ever heard anyone say "i'd like to game on a platform that barely gets 30 frames on the lowest settings."

@ ctbaars, this may be true but as i stated before, Intel would be the most reliable in terms of price/performance AND longevity by a mile.

@ darknirvana21, I would go for Intel for gaming at this time there is no logic to convince me otherwise. 2500K is your best bet with a P67 or Z68 motherboard if it fits your bill. For playing the games you listed, a good 6950 1GB (AMD) or GTX 560 Ti 448 core (Nvidia) would fit that bill quite well.
 

vitornob

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lol, I do know that, but considering the cpu price, there's no reason to go for an AMD cpu considering the ratio perfomance/cost for a newly built system (some people might have a better spent money if they update they current AMD platform for example through)
 

cyansnow

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A lot of my friends went intel back in '03 and I went AMD (Athlon 64) but now is now, I went AMD at first and got the 980 BE for this gen, and recently went Intel and got a 2600k. I can't say that AMD is better but I also can't say that Intel eats AMD up in terms of performance, unless you're going to compare the 3960x against the Phenom 9xx, AMD's do fine if they don't bottleneck you. So if you're on a budget, going AMD is not a bad thing, just make sure to pick up a Phenom 2 now if you're gonna build, the are discontinued and I believe the Phenom 2 is one of AMD's best CPUs. Not to say that the FX series is bad but if you're spending that much just go intel, no point in getting the good FX series when you can get a 2500k, unless you have a specific reason to get 8 cores.

I like both companies equally, and both have strengths and weaknesses like, Intel will be the fastest this gen and AMD will be fast but are more affordable, and remember not all people need the best of the best.
 

aqe040466

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Nov 29, 2011
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It depends on your budget actually. i5 2500K overclock to around 4.5-4.7 GHZ combine to a P67 or Z68 MB with decent Video card with a minimum of 8GB DDR3 memory, SSD or HDD. I can say you can play all the games out there with max settings.
 

darknirvana21

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Feb 24, 2012
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Well the budget for the tower alone is 2300 dollars or less. I want the maximum gaming experience and I don't really wanna cut corners. I was also considering going as high as the 3930k or waiting for ivy bridge but I am not sure if its worth doing either.
 

jonpaul37

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I believe OP meant "tower" as in "tower complete with components inside as well"
 

jonpaul37

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Op originally stated for gaming on games such as Skyrim, SWToR & MW3

That being said, based on the purse you have for a gaming rig, you could do pretty much anything while sticking with the Intel platform - which will indeed last longer, perform better and is not a dead platform.

Best bet is to go with a Z68 motherboard with good features, Intel i5 2500K, 16GB of DDR3 RAM, a decent SSD (120 GB or higher) an HDD for storage, a decent aftermarket CPU cooler and an AMD 7950 video card.

That machine will basically handle anything you throw at it and later on down the road, grab another 7950 for crossfire.

You can also consider the 2011 platform but i don't see an advantage in gaming to justify buying a 2011 mobo with an i7 3930...