Along with

[darth_nevus]

intel's c2d will yield better frame rates with crysis. however, if your an amd man, i can accept that. let me look into the phenom front. nice thing about amd is they force etailors to adhere to an approx pricing scheme as part of their contract.

i am eyeing the 790 amd boards quite a bit, and a phenom might be the way to go. BUT, the errata TLB issue currently is quite a bit, and enough to make me at least offer to you an Intel alternative. the 790 looks to bring some decent improvments to the table, but its not available yet. let me check into the time frame.

Firefox was REALLY hit performance wise by the tlb patch, as it lost 57% performance to it. and AMD has said the corrected cores will not appear until late Q1 2008.

video is also questionable, as there have been some decent rumors flying around to the G92 variants coming out here soon. but i'll look into that as well.

here's some info on the upcoming replacements for the G80s as they are discontinued by the end of this year:

http://www.dailytech.com/What+a+Mess...rticle9506.htm

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=10033

as well, whether its intel or amd, you'll need to get new ram. the 939 boards used ddr400 ram, where as the new AM2 and 775 boards use ddr2 as a standard. so don't forget to figure that into the equation.

[juneau]

intel's c2d will yield better frame rates with crysis. however, if your an amd man, i can accept that. let me look into the phenom front. nice thing about amd is they force etailors to adhere to an approx pricing scheme as part of their contract.

i am eyeing the 790 amd boards quite a bit, and a phenom might be the way to go. BUT, the errata TLB issue currently is quite a bit, and enough to make me at least offer to you an Intel alternative. the 790 looks to bring some decent improvments to the table, but its not available yet. let me check into the time frame.

Firefox was REALLY hit performance wise by the tlb patch, as it lost 57% performance to it. and AMD has said the corrected cores will not appear until late Q1 2008.

video is also questionable, as there have been some decent rumors flying around to the G92 variants coming out here soon. but i'll look into that as well.

here's some info on the upcoming replacements for the G80s as they are discontinued by the end of this year:

http://www.dailytech.com/What+a+Mess...rticle9506.htm

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=10033

as well, whether its intel or amd, you'll need to get new ram. the 939 boards used ddr400 ram, where as the new AM2 and 775 boards use ddr2 as a standard. so don't forget to figure that into the equation.

What you just typed would be enough to put me off. AMD's chips are not in a very good position right now.

I don't know about the US pricing by the Phenom 9500+ (lowest available) comes in at the same price as a Q6600G0. Choosing a Phenom above that chip is nothing short of insane.

[darth_nevus]

thats just it. Intel is winning, overall, and by a huge margin. the current phenom are being touted as AMD's worst blunder of 2007, if not ever.

Personally, i'd stay away from them until the errata is corrected on the next die revision. but hats a few months off. for the next 3 months, Intel owns the waters. and after theat they will as well, but it just makes AMD uncompetitive on the price and processing standpoint.

IMO, Phenom is similiar to UT3. lots of hype, but it TOTALLY tanked once it hit the shelves. that doesn't mean its bad(in either case), but, it brings some pretty heavy negatives to the table.

but folks sticking with a particular lineup are going to do so. and i don't blame them. i have always been an amd man. but as of late, they just didn't bring to the table what was needed, and really did poorly with what they did bring. their GPU's and CPU's sucked the last few months, with no immeadiate hope of reprise in the near future. the only thing they have going for them is price. they are still a strong competitor in the world because 90% of all pcs are NOT gaming rigs. but the enthusist market is beginning to doubt them.

atm, if i need a cheap, stable pc, i build an amd. if i want a gaming powerhouse, i go intel. as it stands, amd really isn;t trying to win the enthusiest market. and i don't blame them. there is very little profit in it.

to give you an idea of what the current phenom TLB patch present, here is an article:

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/13741



Now, let me end by saying that it is not IMPOSSIBLE to build a decent AMD gaming rig. they have priced everything(except the phenoms as of late) very nicely for the end consumer. many decent rigs have been assembled with the 6000+ am2 chips, and they are nicely priced. but above that, and newer, Intel is just winning.

its just a matter of mating exactly whats truly needed.

curently, with the Phenom dead in the water, the best current bet is a 6400+ or 6000+ processor. the phenoms just aren't going to cut it, at their price point until the errata is fixed.

Motherboardwise, you are going to want to get an AM2+/AM2 board. reason being that once the phenom are fixed, its a good choice for an upgrade. and since am2 boards won't take a phenom processor, the hybrid boards are better. i am biased to Gigbabyte, so i;d say the GA-MA790FX-DS5 is a great choice.

the phenom is a great chip. but the for $100 additional price tag for a chip that in the end is better but on "what you pay for" scale doesn't stack up, i can't justify recommending it.