I5 vs Phenom, Oc'd 460 vs 6870

[Louie82Y]

Need help deciding on what would give me the best performance possible on Crysis & Metro. My budget is anything under $900, don't need an HDD or OS however. I plan to max them both at 1920x1080, with 2x AA, 4x maybe. This part of my build is set in stone:

8GB RAM 1333
COOLER MASTER HAF 922
Corsair 650w PSU

Now, I need help on deciding whether or not I should get a Phenom II X4 965, and an Asus 6870 or an i5-760, and a Hawk Talon Attack GTX 460 Oc'd at 810mhz. I've heard in general that an i5 is better then a Phenom, and that a 6870 is better then a standard 1GB 460, but what about when it's OC'd a lot?

As for motherboard, I would most likely get an ASUS P7P55D Deluxe. I don't know which mobo to get if I chose to go AMD, so if I do, any recommendations for a mobo $160 or below? Thanks.

 

[suteck]

I like the asus board but you might want to spend the extra $70 and get an i7 870. Might as well get the quad core and the asus 6870 to go with it. The AMD chips are good budget chips but I prefer the Intels every time. If you're not in a hurry to build you might want to wait for the SandyBridges to come out.

 

[Louie82Y]

Yeah I'm kinda in a hurry to build this rig, it's going to be my Christmas gift . The i7-870 and 6870 combo shoots the price up to $1,024.48, can't afford that at all. I would love to get an i7 instead though.

 

[suteck]

If you don't mind getting a used one you can get this one for $239 from ebay. Seller has a 100% rating and claims excellent condition. I bought 2 used cpu's on ebay and never had any trouble with them. Or this one also for $239. Used parts from good sellers don't scare me. Check my sig - used cpu and mobo. There's a reason some sellers have good ratings. Hey, what you want at a fraction of the cost.

 

[Louie82Y]

I'm a bit reluctant with buying off of Ebay, especially since none of those come with a heat sink. After some consideration, I devised the perfect rig! i5-760, and a 470 GTX, which is a tad faster then 6870, and much better then the 460. To stay under my budget, I cut my RAM in half to 4GB, however to compensate I bumped the speed up to 1600 (vs. 1333). If I'm not mistaken, I would be better off with faster RAM then an excess amount, correct?

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Realistically, if you are using 3-4 gb of ram and have a good video card, you should do fine. Why not consider going with a Phenom II x6?

 

[sadams04]

If you are running @ 1920x1080, then any of those processors will be fine. Running @ 2560x1600 would be a different story, but you aren't at that higher resolution. IMHO go with an AMD rig (x4 or x6) with an overclock.

The AM3 platform will be around long enough for you to plan for a CPU upgrade down the road. Buying LGA1156 will most likely be limited in that regard as that platform is "dead" in the wake of Sandy Bridge.

 

[Louie82Y]

If you are running @ 1920x1080, then any of those processors will be fine. Running @ 2560x1600 would be a different story, but you aren't at that higher resolution. IMHO go with an AMD rig (x4 or x6) with an overclock.

The AM3 platform will be around long enough for you to plan for a CPU upgrade down the road. Buying LGA1156 will most likely be limited in that regard as that platform is "dead" in the wake of Sandy Bridge.

You have an excellent point with the LGA1156 platform dying. I was actually still going to go with the i5, but the GTX 570 just came out today! I'm going to go with the a Phenom since it's considerably cheaper, and I really want to afford that 570. Would I be better off with the Quad Phenom at 3.5ghz, or a 6 core one at 2.8ghz? They're virtually the same price.

 

[sadams04]

You will be happy with either choice. Personally I would go with the X4 970 over the X6 1055T. It boasts a higher speed and is a C3 revision making it respond better to tweaking. Nothing wrong with the 1055T (C2 revision), but since you aren't overclocking the 700MHz bump of the 970 will do you well.

 

[Louie82Y]

Alright thanks, and would the GIGABYTE GA-880GA-UD3H be a good enough mobo? It's incredibly cheap, so I was just wondering.

 

[sadams04]

That is a solid MB. SATA 6, USB 3.0, 2 16x PCIe, HDCP... The onboard Radeon HD 4250 will do 1080 resolution and play Blu-rays smoothly (not that you will be using it). Looks good!

FYI - There is some feedback about disabling the floppy drive to install Windows (controller issue??).