E7400 or Phenom II X3 710

[Wanker79]

This seems like one of those questions that would have been asked a thousand time already, but I didn't see anything obvious in the thread titles. If I just didn't look hard enough, many apologies in advance.

Anyway, the C2D E7400 and the Phenom II X3 710 are both the same price on newegg ($120). So I was wondering what would be the better CPU for a new build? It would mostly just be a moderate gaming machine. And if I OC it'd just be a quick and dirty OC (stock cooler, limited voltage increase if at all, etc). The most multitasking I do is updating our personal website (a few firefox tabs open, MS Frontpage, Comcast Rhapsody, maybe Photoshop for some light picture editing), but generally it'd just be a game.

The last time I was current on hardware I know the first instinct would be to go with the faster C2D (2.8GHz vs 2.6Ghz), but that was before the Phenom II's came out.

Here's the rest of the build. Everything would be identical except the CPUs and MoBos of course.

ASUS P5QL Pro P43 / ASUS M4A78 Pro 780G
HD 4830
2x2GB Muskin 5-4-4-12 DDR2 800
WD3200AAKS (I know the 640 is better $/GB, but there's no way I'm even going to use 320GB)
Antec NSK6580B w/ EA430W PSU

 

[WR2]

There is a good reason the price is the same.
You would not notice any difference just using either CPU.
The performance will be close enough that you'd need to run a benchmark to measure any difference.
Flip a coin?

 

[Wanker79]

So if you add into the consideration that my current rig is several years old (and I'd assume I'd stretch this one well past what most people would consider it's viable lifespan, too) and the fact that I'm one of those people who'd prefer to support AMD just for competitive balance's sake, the Phenom is clearly the way I should go? Nice. I was really hoping AMD had reduced the clock-for-clock performance different with the Phenom IIs.

 

[Helloworld_98]

Well the 710 would perform about the same in every app unless it's an app where clock speed counts.

 

[suddenstop]

The AMD mobos also cheaper.

 

[WR2]

The AMD mobos also cheaper.

Not always. Check the prices on the 2 MBs 79 linked above.