lemanakmelo

Distinguished
Jun 10, 2009
1
0
18,510
am getting a new computer and basically going off the suggestion of a friend who will help me put it together in a few days, so I'm going to buy from a store in my area in a day or two.

From the few things I've read it seems like for a quad core Intel is a better choice than AMD(I've read only a bit but I've seen a few problems mentioned with the Phenom series), and I was looking at the system here The $800 Killer Gaming PC. This one also mentions how the AMD series uses more power (something fairly important to me).
They recommend:
Mobo: ASUS P5Q SE Plus
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 ( or 9400 or 9550)
GPU: EVGA GeForce 260 GTS Core 216 SSC

My friend's recommendation was:
Mobo: Asus M4A78T-E Socket AM3 AMD 790GX
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 810 (95W) Quad-Core Socket AM3
GPU: BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC MAXCORE 55 (actually he originally linked this with a dual core, I'm not sure if this graphics card was supposed to go with this sytem)

From what I've heard I'd just go with the 800$ PC and be done with it, but the EVGA version of the video card (at least I'm assuming it's the same card but fits to different motherboards and cpus) isn't available at the store I'm going to be buying from: Canada Computers. From everything I've heard this card seems to be just the card in my price range and at the quality level I'd like.

One other thing, I'm buying a whole system including monitor and trying to keep in the 1000$ range, from 800-1300 is ok, but preferably right around 1000 is ideal. And I use my computer mostly for playing WoW, but I like doing this while using a music player, Firefox, and even Fraps if my computer could handle it. From my brief research I think quad instead of dual might be a little unecessary, but I wouldn't mind having it because I don't plan to upgrade my computer anytime soon.

So my question, is my friend's recommendation a good choice, or should I go with Intel and find a different video card(though looking at the EVGA cards the next best I see is 280 which is significantly more expensive)? Will it run? Are the parts too expensive for what I'm getting? Any help would be greatly appreciated, and sorry for the long post.

 

loneninja

Distinguished
Phenom II are great processors and compete very well against Intel's Core2Quad series, it was the original Phenom that didn't compete very well and was much more power hungry.

Either system is extreme over kill for Wow and those simple tasks you've listed, so there is no need to worry either way about performance issues.