OK, here's the deal, I'm upgrading my rig after years of being stuck with an old Athlon XP and a 6800GT and I want good gaming performance for a change. Don't do anything else much that is processor demanding like video conversion or whatever. I should mention that I'm a pensioner and money is tight.
With about $AUS1800 to spend (which I have), I can get a Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83 gig CPU, 4 gig decent ram, and a GTX 260 graphics card, along with 750 gig SATA HD and a new 2ms 22" widescreen monitor. Decent case etc. (I already have XP pro).
To go for a Core i7 however stretches past that to $AUS2,200 for a Core i7 920, 6 gig of ram, Vista home premium 64 bit, 500 gig HD, Asus 9800GTX card. and no monitor (I have an old 19" pro Philips CRT which was a good monitor, but getting very long in the tooth).
You can see it's two different paradigms......
Older gen cpu, slower for some stuff, but maybe not slower for gaming, matched to fast current gen graphics card.....versus new gen CPU with older graphics card and no monitor, plus the Core i7 system is stretching the finances to the max.
What's the best choice? Which would be the faster system or indeed would there be little difference?
With about $AUS1800 to spend (which I have), I can get a Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83 gig CPU, 4 gig decent ram, and a GTX 260 graphics card, along with 750 gig SATA HD and a new 2ms 22" widescreen monitor. Decent case etc. (I already have XP pro).
To go for a Core i7 however stretches past that to $AUS2,200 for a Core i7 920, 6 gig of ram, Vista home premium 64 bit, 500 gig HD, Asus 9800GTX card. and no monitor (I have an old 19" pro Philips CRT which was a good monitor, but getting very long in the tooth).
You can see it's two different paradigms......
Older gen cpu, slower for some stuff, but maybe not slower for gaming, matched to fast current gen graphics card.....versus new gen CPU with older graphics card and no monitor, plus the Core i7 system is stretching the finances to the max.
What's the best choice? Which would be the faster system or indeed would there be little difference?