E8400 vs X4 940. Motherboard for x4?

[garfielder]

Greetings.
I am planning to get new machine and want to get some advise.

I am trying to decide between Intel E8400 processor or AMD Phenome II X4 940.


I do realize that those are two very different beasts.

My main use for the computer are going to be gaming, multitasking , running vmware (2-3 machine not heavy load for web development and some other projects.)

E8400 seems to be great for gaming but dual core don't seem to be such a good long term investment and for multitasking and running vmware having 4 cores might be a better idea.
So for that i am ready to get extra money to pay for x4 940, but not ready to spend even more money on q9650,q9550 or i7 920.

I am not planning to OC and not doing SLI.
Most likely it will put single GTX 260 or 4870.

So for that i was thinking taking E8400 + Asus P5Q Pro. or X4 940 with so far unknown motherboard.
What I am trying to figure out if x4 940 is really worth extra money and what would be good motherboard for it.
I am fine with running DDR2 with x4, but DDR3 seems to be getting cheap enough for it not to be a major point.
Budget for motherboard is 130$ (150 is absolute max if there is really huge benefit.)

What would be the good motherboard? (Solid manufacturer, good support and warranty service are assumed. Personally i had good experience with ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte but i know that sometimes things get worse over the years.)

PS: Having E-sata output is a plus but not required.

Any other recommendations are appreciated.

Also is it worth waiting for the 945 on socket AM3? Any idea what the pricing will be and which board is going to support it?

 

[flyin15sec]

One option you can go with is the PhenomII 720BE. It is tri core and is right inline with the price point of an E8400. That means you don't have to fork out extra cash for a quad.

Pair with this board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128378

Gigabyte 790X, at $140 /w -$15 rebate, its around $125. AM3 board is set for any future AMD chips that comes along, plus you'll be using DDR3. If you find that you need a quad, you can pick up the new PhenomII 955 later, or perhaps some octo-core variant.

 

[garfielder]

Thanks for the advice.

One option you can go with is the PhenomII 720BE. It is tri core and is right inline with the price point of an E8400. That means you don't have to fork out extra cash for a quad.

Pair with this board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128378

Gigabyte 790X, at $140 /w -$15 rebate, its around $125. AM3 board is set for any future AMD chips that comes along, plus you'll be using DDR3. If you find that you need a quad, you can pick up the new PhenomII 955 later, or perhaps some octo-core variant.

 

[fullmetall]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.182237
x4 940 + gigabyte combo.


or flyin15sec has a good option for you on the 720be.

Reason why these 2 are the best options is, LGA 775 is going down the drain. They wont be making anymore cpu's for that chipset.

AM2+ is the way to go for you and later on once you get more money racked up, you can buy the rest of the am3 parts for that particular cpu which is AM3. Love how the am2+ is compatable with it's more upgraded cpu's to give people a chance.

Now, doing this, xfire is the better deal, so 4870 1gb

 

[halcyon]

Though I'm currently partial to Intel I'd say that with VMWare in mind go for the X4, especially if you plan to run your VMs concurrently. I'm not sure how quickly 775 is going to disentegrate but the X4 is newer and should be fine for your use.

 

[Jaguar07]

From my benchmarking experiences, I'd suggest the E8400. When using Linux as the OS, the E8400 outperforms all of AMDs current offerings even for VM use.

 

[fullmetall]

Well you can do that, but, later on that rig will need a full new upgrade. LGA775 as said before wont make anymore cpu's