Hi Guys

Please clarify this.

Which is the best in price performance comparison (Consider only medium end) and gaming and future proof.

1) An phenom X4 processor with 790FX mobo and HD4870 or
2) An intel quad with P45 mobo and HD4870

If I get a C2Q now will it be upgradeable after 2 years (with nehalem having new socket) on the other hand if i get a phenom now will it be upgradeable after 2 years (does the socket will be same future amd processors)

If intel is best my main concern will be about upgrading. It will not be upgradable after 2 years, again i need to spend for mobo processor etc. But if i am ready to scarifice some performance today (if amd's build is low) will it be possible to upgrade an AMD sytem after 2 years??? How much performace difference will be there with intel and amd system?

You cannot upgrade the Intel rig, but I have a feeling that the AMD rig wont be upgradable either.

I dont recommend building now. Nehalem is only some 3 months away and you should definitely wait for that.

it is practically impossible to look into the future that far, however, intel's won't be upgradable, that is all i know. I suppose it depends on how you do things, i do not upgrade really, i just rebuild for the most part so i just got a Q9550. i doubt it will be insufficient any time soon.

the first AM3 CPU are planned to be backwards compatible with AM2+, and will have a memory controler that can handle both DDR2 and DDR3. I wouldn't be surprized if it isn't very cost efective and gets dumped before its launched. waite and see

I'd go with an Intel Quad Core and the P45 chipset. It will probably still be another year or two before most games and programs are optimized for quads. Going to be a long, long time before Quads are no longer sufficient.

If you need a quad, and will pay $300 or so for it, then wait until October and build with X58 and Nehalem. It looks to be an outstanding cpu.

For gaming, though, a dual cpu like the E8500 will be more than enough, unless your game is quad core optimized, like FSX. If you will want more gaming power in the future, your upgrade will be the vga card, not the cpu.

Intel.

However, waiting for Nehalem seems to be the wise decision at the moment...

Even if you can aford it, and can wait. I' still get option 2 now.
the only real reason to go with AMD is if you have an AM2 system now. that will let you swap out CPUs in a pinch if you run into problems.

if you go with option 1, I'd get a 790gx, not a FX. its got on board graphics (good if you want to make it a HTPC down the road or have problems with you vid card) and a better southbridge.

option 1 will save you some cash and let you upgrade the CPU longer.

in all honesty upgrading graphics cards is generaly the better performance option.

Thanks for reply guys. What will be the performance difference between intel and amd build.

in all honesty, most games are so graphics heavy, you wont notice a difference.

but there is no question that Intel quads have more oomph than AMD Phenoms

Thank you but what about other performance like video editing 3dmax etc. How the difference will be in them.

Go to Tom's cpu charts, and select the candidate cpu's and the applications you are interested in for an idea of the capabilities. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] 9,369.html
It is my perception that at the higher performance levels, Intel is better. At the lower levels, AMD offers a fair competition.

I think phenom x4 is not available in chart.

Can somebody post me the link showing the benchmark of an amd build (phenom x4) and a intel build (C2Q)

right. how about everyone stop harping on about waiting for nehalem? we have NO IDEA how good or UTTERLY HOPELESS it may be! time moves on. if you want the system now, BUILD IT. what's the cost of the nehalems going to be you think? especially with the self overclocking thing, how are they going to differentiate different models? they are going to be EXPENSIVE and you're going to need an EXPENSIVE and potentially PROBLEMATIC X58 motherboard. you're also going to need DDR3 RAM!

The phenom 9500, 9600, and 9700 are on the chart. You just have to select one as an additional comparison.

We DO have a good idea of what nehalem will do. Some early benchmarks show it to be about 20% faster, clock for clock. Wholesale price in 1000 unit trays are supposed to be $284 for the 2.66ghz model. DDR3 prices are coming down. Today, you can get a 4gb kit for about $170, compared to $70 for DDR2. Yes, a nehalem system will cost more. but in a multicore optimized environment it should be at least double the compute power of a Q6600.

I'm not one to recommend being among the first guinea pigs early-adopters of any new technology due to bot