Best gaming CPU / AMD or Intel

[nismogt1]

Hey guys,

I've been a devoted AMD guy for years now.I'm going to build a serious kick a$$ gamer PC with xtra cash with this yrs tax refund.
I have over 13yrs exp. building PC's from the ground up.So, i'm no noob at this.But, i am curious what you guys think and if you can give me a reason why you think Intel or AMD has the best CPU for gaming.And i dont mean overall speed. Speed is not everything.Which platform between the 2 lends itself to be the better oriented for games.

I'm totally open to suggestions.....

Thanks very much in advance.

nismo

 

[covert24]

intel ftw. i came form amd as well and so far am very pleased.

 

[krnmastersgt]

As of right now since you plan on spending so much, Intel dominates the higher end CPUs, AMD doesn't even come close at all. Personally if I were you I'd wait for Nehalem Q4 this year or Q1 next year. Also wait for the GF9 Series if you want a lot of power to stay for at least 1-2 years.

 

[taltamir]

waiting for nehalem? thats a whole year away!

He should upgrade now, and then upgrade again in a year to nehalem. Pay less, upgrade more. Don't futureproof.

Anyways, intel completely dominates. AMD is only for ultra budget right now. (50$ mobo, 50$ cpu kind of deals).
Anything more and intel is better.

I have been a devoted AMD purchaser for years too... and friday I ordered me an E8400 to replace my X2 3800+

 

[nismogt1]

Alright guys, thanks for the input.I suppose its just silly to ask what you like for video cards...
I'm sure your all gonna say Nvidia... right..??
And ya, i'm going to build a new gamer with some of my tax return.Almost every year for the past few yrs now i build a new PC.

 

[Scottae]

Dunno I do think intel has the top end wrapped up and Nvidia does have the best Top of the ling GPU but, I do see what AMD/ATI is saying with a total platform... you know Quad Xfire, Quadcore Phenom, and 790Fx chipset all at very reasonable prices and great performance for the dollar. But still the 790 FX is still buggy along witht he Phenom Procs. If you go AMD route you may look and say hey I got a really good platform here for a good price. Intel youll spend a bit more and be like Well this rig here is the SHIT plain and simple

 

[firewolfsm]

Just look up some damn reviews and decide for yourself, why do people let spam like this go?

 

[imported_Prentice]

Intel!

 

[justlnluck]

Definitely Intel for the computing and energy efficiency. I also ordered an e8400 on Friday.

 

[Sylvanas]

It depends on how much you want to spend, if you want to OC, what other components will you be pairing it with, what games you intend to use it for- tell us this and we can get started.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

ATi makes good graphics cards...

 

[AdamK47]

Go for the AMD

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Scottae
Dunno I do think intel has the top end wrapped up and Nvidia does have the best Top of the ling GPU but, I do see what AMD/ATI is saying with a total platform... you know Quad Xfire, Quadcore Phenom, and 790Fx chipset all at very reasonable prices and great performance for the dollar. But still the 790 FX is still buggy along witht he Phenom Procs. If you go AMD route you may look and say hey I got a really good platform here for a good price. Intel youll spend a bit more and be like Well this rig here is the SHIT plain and simple

bull, intel you will spend LESS and it will faster!
(agh, i just realised you meant intel is faster and more expensive... "intel is the shit" not "intel is shit")

Intel has the high end AND the mid range wrapped up.

Nvidia has the high end, but AMD is COMPEDATIVE at mid and low range.. (competitive doesn't mean it wins automatically, it means you choose whichever based on preference)

So the 3870 and 3850 are perfectly acceptable performance for their price points. As is the 8800GT...

High End CPU: Intel
Mid range CPU: Intel
Mid-low end CPU: Intel
Low end CPU: AMD

High End Video: nVidia
Mid range video: nVidia or AMD to taste
Low range video: nVidia or AMD to taste.

 

[magreen]

The only tricky thing with high-end cpu + high-end gfx right now is what chipset to use. If you want dual gpus then you can either:

a) choose intel x38/x48 but you're stuck with two mid-range ati cards in xfire... They're a good value for the money but as said above they're not high-end.
--or--
b) choose nvidia sli chipset and then you can use an intel cpu with high-end nvidia gpus in sli. But has the 780i been released yet? I know everybody's upset with 680i and penryn support.

I don't see a win-win situation here.

 

[Puffnstuff]

It's pretty simple actually. Intel cpu + intel chipset mb yields best performance for single graphics card/cf systems. I ran amd for years however since c2d was released intel has been beating them down and they can't seem to recover. I originally switched from an opteron 175 to a e6400@2.7 and it was 100% faster in decoding files. I recently upgraded to a q6600@3ghz and amd has no hope of matching it performance wise with what they offer. I'm running a 650i chipset mb so I can use sli however when I replace this mb I'll be going to an intel chipset for the performance.

 

[daveybrat]

Custom built Addtronics 7698 Full Tower, FPS 700W PS, Asus M2R-32MVP, AMD AM2 6400+,2048 megs OCZ DDR2 ATI Cert. PC-6400, 2 Western Digital 36 gig Raptor drives in Raid 0, 2 ATI X1900XT in Crossfire, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, Lite On DVD player, Zalman Fan Controller,Plextor 716A DVD/CD-ROM burner. Klipsch Pro-Media Ultra 450 watt 5.1 sound system. Viewsonic VX 922 LCD.

From your sig, you look like you already have a pretty good system. An X2 6400+ is not a bad cpu even by today's standards. If i had your system, i'd probably just wait about 2 months for the new Nvidia and ATI high end video cards to come out and replace your X1900XT crossfire system.

 

[quadomatic]

Originally posted by: daveybrat

Custom built Addtronics 7698 Full Tower, FPS 700W PS, Asus M2R-32MVP, AMD AM2 6400+,2048 megs OCZ DDR2 ATI Cert. PC-6400, 2 Western Digital 36 gig Raptor drives in Raid 0, 2 ATI X1900XT in Crossfire, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, Lite On DVD player, Zalman Fan Controller,Plextor 716A DVD/CD-ROM burner. Klipsch Pro-Media Ultra 450 watt 5.1 sound system. Viewsonic VX 922 LCD.

From your sig, you look like you already have a pretty good system. An X2 6400+ is not a bad cpu even by today's standards. If i had your system, i'd probably just wait about 2 months for the new Nvidia and ATI high end video cards to come out and replace your X1900XT crossfire system.

Yeah, I don't see why you're upgrading either. Maybe you could replace your crossfire X1900XT with a 3870 X2 or 2 3850s, but I don't see why you would bother upgrading.

 

[GundamF91]

There's no futureproofing per se. Just get the best you can afford now and then upgrade when you need more power. Neither AMD AM2+ nor Intel LGA775 sockets are going to be high end in 2009, so just enjoy what you can right now. That said, Intel is better path right now, get E8400 now and once Nehalem comes out in 2009 (which will require new socket and new board), you can upgrade LGA775 quad core at a lower cost. Actually, having better GPU is more important, and your E8400 rig should be more than enough CPU-wise for a couple of years.

 

[bharatwaja]

@ nismogt1:

I am in ur exact same position too.... been an AMD follower for the past 8 years.... now very dissappointed after phenom reviews.... for that price intel offers the best bang....
so i wud suggest INTEL FTW. I myself have ordered the QX9650.. pricey I know... but jus wanted the best...

I wud suggest an E8400 if u absolutely gotta have it now and an option to upgrade to q9450 later on (may be even price cuts in q9550 might make it a better upgrade choice)...

If u wanna have a quad core now then q6600 G0 is the only choice for best bang/buck....

The graphic card segment is very volatile... you could go for a X38/X48 mobo that has crossfire only, the 3870X2 have had good reviews so far... u cud pop one of those in and then prolly get another one a few months later and make it quad fire (logically, though not the same)... and jus gotta hope the drivers for that setup is corrected in the mean while.... if u wanna go for the 9800GX2 then i'd say get a 8800GT in EVGA and u have that the step up plan to upgrade to 9800 when it comes out (90 day plan)....

Graphics card segment is very volatile... so u cant have the absolute kick ass PC for more than 6 months probably...

jus dont cheap out on the PSU.... if u plan on cross firing the 3870X2 with a X38/X48 mobo then an 850+ PSU is vital... 1000+ would be the most ideal....

 

[nyker96]

e8400

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: nismogt1
Hey guys,

I've been a devoted AMD guy for years now.I'm going to build a serious kick a$$ gamer PC with xtra cash with this yrs tax refund.
I have over 13yrs exp. building PC's from the ground up.So, i'm no noob at this.But, i am curious what you guys think and if you can give me a reason why you think Intel or AMD has the best CPU for gaming.And i dont mean overall speed. Speed is not everything.Which platform between the 2 lends itself to be the better oriented for games.

I'm totally open to suggestions.....

Thanks very much in advance.

nismo

Why ???

Custom built Addtronics 7698 Full Tower, FPS 700W PS, Asus M2R-32MVP, AMD AM2 6400+,2048 megs OCZ DDR2 ATI Cert. PC-6400, 2 Western Digital 36 gig Raptor drives in Raid 0, 2 ATI X1900XT in Crossfire, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, Lite On DVD player, Zalman Fan Controller,Plextor 716A DVD/CD-ROM burner. Klipsch Pro-Media Ultra 450 watt 5.1 sound system. Viewsonic VX 922 LCD.

 

[v8envy]

2 ATI X1900XT in Crossfire -- that's why. It's not benching anywhere nearly as high as 3x 8800GTX rigs.

That's a seriously high end e-peen rig from yesteryear. For current monstrous e-peen points I believe the way to go is a Skulltrail motherboard with two Extreme edition Yorkies. 3 grand to be king of the hill for about 10 months or so, not including water cooling.

p.s. to the OP: the reason Intel is better for gaming is Intel cpus have larger caches, typically. Games respond very well to large caches. The E8400 is an ideal gaming CPU today from a bang for the buck standpoint. If overclocked it could double your current CPU oomph. Whether you need that is a completely different question.

There's always faster or better, with the usual quickly diminishing return on investments.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Do you overclock?

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: nismogt1
reason why you think Intel or AMD has the best CPU for gaming.And i dont mean overall speed. Speed is not everything.Which platform between the 2 lends itself to be the better oriented for games.

Crossfire and SLI are available for both. Both can run all the same game titles. Both have motherboards with proper connecotrs for your favorite gaming peripherals (USB flightsticks, game pads, gaming mice, outlandishly expensive keyboards).

Well, gosh, both platforms have everything a gamer could want as far as functionality and compatibility, so where does that leave us?

We're back to comparing performance.

However, I would like to point out that there is absolute performance, and price-performance. Intel has absolute performance meaning if cost were no object then AMD would run out of products before beating Intel in performance. For price-performance, once you drop down below a certain price level then they perform similarly.

 

[konakona]

I agree intel has the performance crown at the moment, undisputed I might add. That combined with an excellent price/performance ratio c2d dual cores boast, I replaced both of my AMD rigs (754 - dead, 939 - donated to family) with c2d variants.

The question still stands though, does it really matter when considering a realistic scenario where we would use high rez and vid card is most likely the limiting factor? Also, most cpu benches to my knowledge (still) quote avg fps which are way too high, the reason being the same as above. I would be more interested in seeing minimum fps comparisons where CPU is definitely holding you back.

Of course none of this is really relevant, as Exxxx are cheaper than phenom regardless.