Okay, I have been looking around and deciding as some of you may know. I have bought almost all the other parts of my computer but I still have yet to buy my motherboard and processor. I am still torn between AMD and Intel, but I do want a Quad-Core system.

So here are my options, I think I narrowed it down to three

1)
CPU- AMD Phenom X4 Agena 9500 @2.2Ghz Quad-Core
RAM- 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800mhz Crucial Ballistix
Motherboard- MSI Platinum AMD 790FX AM2+
GPU- 2x CF VisionTek ATI Radeon HD3870s 512mb

2)
CPU- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Ed. (upgrade to Phenom 9550 later)
RAM- 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800mhz Crucial Ballistix
Motherboard- MSI Platinum AMD 790FX AM2+
GPU- 2x CF VisionTek ATI Radeon HD3870s 512mb

3)
CPU- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @2.66Ghz Quad-Core
RAM- 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800mhz Crucial Ballistix
Motherboard- Asus P5E Intel X38 LGA 775
GPU- 2x CF VisionTek ATI Radeon HD3870s 512mb


My motherboard needs to be able to do Crossfire, support Pci-E 2.0, and Overclock well.
The AMD solutions fit together really well (Spider Platform), and offer eveyrthing I need, but Intel just seems to be a little bit better in every way... I really like AMD, but the Intel option is just something I cant overlook, I really am having a hard time choosing. The Intel option also is a little more expensive, mobo is $50-60 more, CPU is $30-40 more, but is also faster...

if you go with AMD system get the 5000+ and upgrade to a Phenom next year when the faster versions come out.

Even if you were considering Phenom, I wouldn't buy it just yet. Wait for the B3 revisions and see if all the bugs are fixed, then buy one. Personally I would go with the Spider platform since everything fits together so nicely with each other, but that's just me

Nab the intel system. the x2's offer a very great budget processor. But their phenoms are really not worth investing a dime in atm. Even so, you can oc the q6600 to 3 ghz without even a voltage change...for 280 bucks, and just a few seconds in the bios and some orthos testing, you get the performance of a processor worth a grand.

Just nab the q6600 ^_^...Then just push it to 3 ghz. If you want more performance, up the voltage, and get it up as a far as you can. You might have to pay a tad bit more for the processor/mobo...But the performance is leaps and bounds over the other two solutions.

I was just talking to someone who has a q6600 and he said it was alright performance wise but compared to like high end C2D it wasn't all that special. But also he said he didn't OC, I plan to a lot and future apps will take advantage of the 4 cores. So if I OC to say 3.2Ghz what kind of performance would that yield? Paired with 2 CF 3870s and 4Gb of ram

Q6600. Simple as that.

If you want the performance now and you dont want to "upgrade" to much in the near future the Q6600 and Overclock would be the way to go. Q6600 at ~3ghz will negate the better performance of the high end dual cores that your friend was talking about as the clocks would be closer to the same.

If you were upgrading in the near future the AMD might be the way to go, go with the 5000+ now and when phenom irons its bugs out it should be nice, coop that with the spider platform and you maybe in FTW (assuming AMD fixes current issues).

Just out of curiousity where are you getting the MSI board from? cant find them anywhere ... + watch out there could be a quick upgrade to most spider mainboards when the SB700 hits the streets.

Yes without OC'ing the Q6600 stock is nothing more special but still in comparison to a C2D a Q6600 is future proof when more and more games/apps become multi threaded in such things as physics off loaded to the CPU instead of the GPU you will see a FPS jump. Also if you take a C2D E6600 stock and compare it to a Q6600 stock in say HL2 E2 you will see a difference in the FPS as there are more cores to offload other tasks to and the physics to.

And if you do that setup you will see a big jump in perfromance. I would say it would easily beat a E6850 since it will be clocked higher and run at the same voltage area and temps.

I for one love my Q6600. On Vista I never notice a slowdown at all no matter what I am doing and it takes like 10 seconds to unzip a 1GB file.

As for the starting question I would go Q6600. Phenom is not worth investing in and a 5000+ BE doesn't OC as well as the Q6600. CFX sounds tempting but not worth it right now(not until they have pure x16 PCIe 2.0 on all lanes but then you would need a new mobo for the support(due to it will only be available on the latest chipsets kinda like an Intel chipset. Plus the Q6600 is only a bit more than the 9500 and offers much better performance per clock and per watt.

But if you want true performance jumps I would say build a low end system for now and then upgrade to a Nehalem with Larabee(Intels GPU) when they come out. I for one just built my system but plan on upping to a 32nm Nehalem when it hits the market and I want a 8 core CPU.

I am always waiting for the next thing though, I've waited long enough, I want a new rig lol.

And also the msi board was on newegg but just do a google product search.

Since you're going with dual 3870s, you'd want the fastest CPU you can afford to avoid bottlenecking in games. I'd go with the Q6600 system, it may cost a bit more but is definitely worth it, especially if you overclock. Even at stock speeds it will be 20% faster than the Phenom system, if you compare max overclock the Q6600 will be closer to 40% faster, considering Phenoms are having difficulty overclocking past 2.8GHz while Q6600 can normally do 3.6GHz on air, plus it has a 10% higher IPC.

the Q6600 can do 3.6ghz on air?? Hmm that's nice, that's some nice Performance, didn't know that, I thought 3.2ghz was pushing it

Yeah, 3.6GHz is fairly common, generally all you need is a good HSF and about 1.4V (0.1V above stock). Make sure you get a G0 stepping Q6600 though, it runs cooler and overclocks higher than the older B3 stepping. I'm not sure if B3 Q6600s are still around, but it doesn't hurt to make sure.

i'm not sure the Quad Core AMD's yet qualify as a beast.

more like a gerbil.

The Q6600 actually runs at 2.4GHz. The Q6700 is the one that runs at 2.67GHz.