build advice

[Atomic Rooster]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cksboy15

I believe the 955 beat the i7 on Tom's Fallout 3 bench. Karma linked to it a few weeks ago, or was it months?

That really isn't saying much by beating the i7 in one bench.

Anandtech - AMD's Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition

[cksboy15]

I know. Just mentioning that the phenom II isn't to far behind the i7.

[pullmyfoot]

Its somewhat close but nowhere near as fast. The Fallout 3 bench is a very rare exception that does not truly reflect the CPUs true potential. If you look at it carefully, then you can probably say that the 720 BE is as fast as the i7 920 because its just 1fps behind, which is like 1. something percent. We also have the E8200 a mere 0.1fps behind the i7 920. On top of that, the E8200 is 0.2fps 'faster' than the Q9550. Fallout 3 is just a screwy benchmark.

I am an AMD guy but I gotta admit, the i7 chips are out of AMD's league ATM.

AMD is getting there though . They've pretty much spent the past year months leapfrogging Intel's Core 2s (something that should have been done last year). Better late than never I suppose...

[sr71000]

Just in case you guys are curious I went with the first system karma put together. I added in the 600 watt psu that cksboy recommended on page 2. It was the same psu karma recommended in the response above, except 600 watt instead of 500. I figured the extra power gives him a little more headroom before he has to think about upgrading again. I have the 500 watt ocz in one of my machines and it's been solid since I got it so I'm hoping for good things! Looking forward to putting this rig together. Thanks everyone for the help!

To continue with the off topic convo that started afterwards....do you guys really think AMD is going to catch up any time soon?

[KarmaKiller]

No and yes
Technically, they already "caught up" and passed Intel, they now have the OC record for a quad core. (again, it goes back and forth weekly)
But, for the average Joe user, probably not. Intels are faster out of the box. Intel is already got a upper hand on the next series of CPU's also, AFAIK, amd had started anything yet.
BUT, the one good thing AMD has going for them is the prices. This is where Intel can't compete. (at least atm) And I think this is what's gonna keep AMD afloat.

Just my 2.

And make sure you post pics and such.

[sr71000]

/edit - it's amazing what a night of broken computers and no sleep will get you to post... I rewrote the entire post because most of what was here last night was useless drivel.

I'll definitely get pics up as soon as I can. I'm disappointed though, because the guy i'm doing this for decided to stick with his old alienware case, which is an absolute tank. I was surprised when I first picked it up. Damn thing was heavy!

I have a question about water cooling. The guy had ONLY his cpu water cooled. The reservoir sat in the back of the case where the exhaust fans would typically go. There was still an exhaust fan there, but the reservoir was cutting down on air flow quite a bit. With the two cards in sli, and everything else in the case generating so much heat and not water cooled, It seems to me like that would do more harm than good for the overall cooling in the case, no? The cards are the long pci express cards too so they really restrcted airflow on top of that.

He didn't know what he was doing with the water cooling, so I assume the system was never flushed, checked, or maintained in any way. He also isn't doing any overclocking or anything like that. Because of that, I advised him to stick with regular cooling w/ fans and such. What do you guys think?

Getting back to the intel/amd thing. So you guys are saying that intel has the fastest around, but amd has them beat from a price/performance standpoint?

-Kevin

[ShyguyXPC]

Try hocking your wares else where please...

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