E8400 or Phenom 2 920?

if gaming is important, then get the E8400. the phenom II isn't bad, it's a huge improvement over the original, but for gaming the core 2's are only beaten by the i7's. although if all you play is supreme commander, then the phemom II would be better.

well it's typically up to you. E8400 can overclock to 4GHz on air Phenom II 920 can hit 3.8GHz and the P2 940 can hit 3.9GHz. But for gaming go with the Dual or wait for the C2Q 45nm to come down in price later this month.

I'd say go with the E8400 on a decent crossfire capable P45 motherboard. You can always upgrade it down the line with a Q9550 or Q9650 if you need quad core performance for new games or other applications.

Phenom 2 easily will beat the E8400 in most benchmarks.
Here is the Toms Hardware review of the Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16 GHz desktop processor vs an AMD Phenom X4 9350e 2.0 GHz high-efficiency quad core CPU.It says that the Phenom X4 9750 will beat the Core 2 Duo in most of the benchmarks but the 9350e lost.
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 10-15.html
The Phenom II 920 is much faster than the Phenom X4 9750 and the Core 2 Duo 8500 is slightly faster than the Core 2 Duo 8400.
So hands down the Phenom II 920 wins.

You will probably want a AM2+ 790GX motherboard with a P2 like these.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] MD%20790GX

To help you decide go to these forums and see or sign up and ask.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] y.php?f=58

Make sure it will support AM3, as well...cause these will be the ONLY Phenom II AM2 CPUs that will be released (according to AMD's roadmap).

Get a board that will not support AM3 CPUs = new motherboard = more $$$ spent.

If you are going phenom 2 get it in a combo with a mobo from newegg, you can get up to $40 off that way. they also have combos with video cards and hard drives.

I thought the AM3 was going to be socket 938 ... hence PI or PII's won't fit the new socket??

You need to learn to READ.

Where did I say, get an AM3 board?
I said, make sure that it will SUPPORT AM3 CPUS....DUMB A$$.

So, before you start calling people idiots, better learn how to READ.

Well the E8400 is cheaper so you could put more money towards something else. It also runs most games better, and has better overclocking potential. On the other hand going with the Phenom II and a good motherboard will give you a good upgrade path as you will be able to use AM3 CPUs in that motherboard latter on. Most of the motherboards based on the AMD 7xx series of chipsets from MSI, Gigabyte, and Asus seem to support AM3 CPUs. Basically if the board you pick supports the Phenom 2 out of the box it should support AM3 with a BIOS update. If you like to have many windows open at once you may also appreciate the extra cores of a quad core CPU.

I heard rumor of such an animal in the works (probably by ASRock, since they like to use the dual memory format), but I have also heard that most mobo makers will just abandon DDR2 in favor of DDR3 due to a cost and motherboard space thing. Again, this is all rumor. Of course, if it is strictly DDR2 or DDR3 only, I believe it will depend on the price of DDR3, by the time mass production of AM3 boards are released, that will determine if there will be 2 memory formats for AM3 boards.

Forget dual cores, go QUAD - GTA IV thrashes even my Q6600 @ 3.5ghz

The future is quads - why are we all still recomending duals? come on people.

With your budget and future concerns. I would go quad core, phenom II.

1. Many new games will probably support more cores in the near future. Even if they dont, having quad will help you with any other types of apps that do support quad cores, video. You cant add cores later.

2. They will OC to mid 3G if you need it. A 3.4G core is plenty for gaming.

3. E8400 is socket 775. No new cpus coming out. Limited upgrade due to supply over time. In 2 years, supply of C2Quads may be low.

A good brand name 780 or 790 AMD chipset mobo with AM2+. $300 for Phenom and a good brand mobo will be a difficult. $400 and your in business. You could get a AMD 6000+, $90, for now and get a phenom II later when you need it and they are cheaper. The next gen phenom II will be AM3. They will be backwards compatible.

Thanks for all the great replies. I think I will wait another month and see what the prices are for the new P2 925 AM3 and go from there. There is also a rumor that Intel will be dropping prices on its C2Q's at the end of January so it will be in my best interests to wait until next month to pull the trigger.

I am still leaning towards the P2 with a nice mobo that can support an AM3 chip in the future. Thanks again everyone.

GO p2, Quads are the future and when directx 10 comes out it will support multicore rendering. GAMES now are better for dual cores. Games of the future will be better on quad and beyond. Remember when dual cores came out and no one needed them because games were all single threaded? Exactly, never invest in dual when things are switching to quad.

that used to be a very strong argument until game developers put console gaming first. PC gaming by and large exists on hand me downs (console ports) that are done in the manner that delivers a return on their investment the quickest. get it to work, put it in a box and see what patches need to be created and count the money. quads are here and it will catch on in game development but i don't think it will be as dramatic as it was going from single core to dual core. that is making reference to a time when PC gaming was a better revenue source than consoles. not the case anymore.

Dont forget that PS3 has a quad core and xbox 360 has a tri-core so games will be optimized for more than a dual core. Isnt that why GTA4 is optimized for quad cores?

Toshiba/IBM's Cell processor in the PS3 has 9 cores, 1 of them are general purpose.

i wont argue it WILL happen but largely it has NOT. you can count the number of quad optimized games on one hand and it isn't like quads are something new just as multi-core in consoles isn't new. the slow adoption rate doesn't signal any abrupt change in the near future.

So, I should do all the research to prove my point? Right.
If you're so interested in finding out if a motherboard maker will make their motherboards compatible with AM3 CPUs...go look it up.
Seriously, first you call someone an idiot, cause you can't read, then you "cry" when I show that there is already AM3 compatible BIOS from ASUS.

You're trolling ability = fail.

Oh, and here's ASRock's AM3 compatibility list.
ASRock AM3 compatibility list

So, either PUT UP or SHUT UP.

Doltron, your a dufuss!

To the oP, Id go Phenom 2 quad over any dual core.

Not exactly, the PS3 has 1 Power PC core and 7 Synergistic Processing Elements (technically it has 8 but one is disabled to help yields).

GTA4 is a crappy port where the developers put very little effort in optimizing it at all for the PC but yes it does take advantage of multiple cores. I don't think games in general are going to need quad cores for some time though.

2 are dedicated to Sony's personal processing tasks.

The PS3 has 1 PPC and 5 SPEs for gaming developers to use.

My point being that developers are not as at leisure to port from the PS3 as they are to port from the 360. (more reasons than just the 3 core design too. developer tools and the rest as well).

Quad core designs will be forced out soon, as the dual core chips will soon be EOL. (the Q6xxx are already EOL).

I fear you are trolling, but I want to point out that my Gigabyte motherboard is AM2+. Gigabyte has a bios that supports Phenom 920 and 940. I'm getting a 940 as soon as income tax refund arrives.

ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI are supporting Phenom II in most of their AM2+ boards. Dreck companies like PC Chips and ECS won't. Midrange companies like Jetway might. It all depends.

Don't confuse AM3 sockets with AM3 CPU support. AM3 and AM2+ sockets are pin compatible. The difference in support will come down to DDR2 vs. DDR3. Some AMD 880G boards might even support DDR2 instead of DDR3, if rumors are correct (the chipset supports both memory types).

Why can't we edit today and why are the preview and post buttons auf Deutsch?