Phenom II x4 or i7 920

[perfek]

Hi, I'm planning on building a new pc as soon as I get enough information to make a purchase. I have played around a little bit on newegg comparing prices and setups. I'd like to run a system with:

COOLER MASTER RC-690 mid tower - Case
Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache - HD
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V - PSU
XFX HD-489A-ZDFC Radeon HD 4890 1GB - GPU

Mushkin Cas 6 ddr3 triple channel ram
or
Mushkin Cas 7 ddr3 dual channel ram

- (Depending on cpu)

Core i7 920
or
AMD Phenom II x 4 955

I plan on using this PC for Gaming, specifically CS:Source, COD 4, Left 4 Dead, and maybe something like Aion from time to time. From my calculations it's around a $185-200 difference between the two setups. I was wondering if the core i7 is worth the extra money in terms of game play. Thanks

 

[Derbixrace]

maybe go with phenom and swap out the 4890 for a 5870/5850 i think you will get better gaming performance from those and then you can play with dx11 too and then if you go with AMD build you only need dual channel ram and that makes it cheaper too... 4gb (2x2gb) 1333mhz from a good brand should be enough, at least im fine with 4gb. change the harddrive for a samsung f3 500gb, it should be faster

 

[Rock_n_Rolla]

The Phenom II x4 procie specially their fastest one @ 3.4ghz stock clock speed
can only match Intel's core 2 quad Q8400 @ its 2.6 ghz speed. Other high end
procies of Intel specially the i7 ones like the 920 (@ its 2.6ghz for example) will
surely beat this AMD procie in any test big time! Even the Intel's LGA775 C2Q 9550 @ its
2.8ghz clock speed will also beat this AMD in very large amount of score margins.
Though not so literally, lets say 90/10 percentage where that 10%
AMD only scored higher than Intel's in some test but that's it.
That is far AMD can go. As far as rivalry with Intel is concerned. When it comes to
price? AMD surely wins the heart of the masses though not for long, coz Intel's
new i7 and i5 Lynfield procies are now around the corner waiting to get noticed
by the masses and when it does, all AMD can do is bring down the price of their
high end procies to match those new i7 ones in order to compete, thus resulting
in a very very low earnings.

 

[warmon6]

Well it will depend on how much you wanting to spend and if your going to be running anything else while playing a game.
If nothing else going to be running while playing games then i would say the Phenom 2.

If there other stuff that's going to be running while playing games like anti virus, then i would say core i7 for the massive multi-tasking abilities.

If your on budget and wanting to save a few bucks. the Phenom 2.

Although in games, most of the time you wont see a difference between phenom 2 and core i7 on game. Mainly you should look into the GPU's for better gameplay.

 

[DariusT]

Id go for the PhII and use the extra money to upgrade the GPU(5850 is what im buying on my new rig). While the i7 920 is a better processor, a radeon 4890 will restrict your gaming far sooner than the PhII will.