My new build and a big Doh!

[juneau]

That's probably the resolution I will start playing at. Why do you think the quad core will choke on less than that res?

Because i can guarantee that all your upcomming games will be using 2 cores at most. Even a new Intel E8400 Dual Core would need to be running at 4Ghz or so to remove the bottleneck of 2 4870's in XFire.

It's not all about load skud. It's about how fast the CPU moves the data it's being passed from and to the graphics card. If the CPU was slower it doesn't mean the load would be higher to compensate.

And i don't hate AMD! Where has this come from? My current Intel e6750 is actually my first Intel chip in about 6+ years. Iirc my previous Intel before that was a Pentium @ 500mhz or something.

I'm not a fanboy or anything else.... i just get the most for my money, and that means CPU = Intel right now. If i switched my graphics card out right this minute i'd go AMD/ATI.

[Jed_Clampet]

Because i can guarantee that all your upcomming games will be using 2 cores at most. Even a new Intel E8400 Dual Core would need to be running at 4Ghz or so to remove the bottleneck of 2 4870's in XFire.

I did look at the dual and triple core AMDs, but liked the idea of having the 4 cores for video editing and whatever would take advantage of them in the future - hopefully games that could scale their performance based on your setup.

I think what it really was is that I always built just to get by. Not this time - I'm splurgin' baby!

[Furryappleseed]

Nice build. I was looking at Toms CPU charts and the 955 does pretty well compared to the Intel offerings (better than i7 920 in some games).

The new Amd DirectX 11 GPUs are coming in a few weeks...pricing is rumored at $300 and said to be much more powerful than 4890s.

[DougBob]

Jed that may be the best DOH you ever made though

[{CLR} Cobalt]

Because i can guarantee that all your upcomming games will be using 2 cores at most. Even a new Intel E8400 Dual Core would need to be running at 4Ghz or so to remove the bottleneck of 2 4870's in XFire.

Juneau, from all the stuff I seen on benchmarks for various cards at really high res. , only the GPU was any problem. Looked at Guru3D and they stated that most of the dual core's above 2.8 never ran into a problem.In fact they also stated that there really wasnt a noticeable difference between dual's and quad's and that they thought the dual's actually performed better.

I have an E8400 clocked at 3.3 on this machine I have in Bangkok with the res maxed out for the monitor at 1280 x 1024 and it performs just fine with an 9800 GT oc'd. But I aint pushin 2 cards so cant say much for real world apps bogging down the CPU.

Makes me kinda sad that I wasted money on a quad for my laptop that I play on. Least thats what I thought I read. I could be mistaken.

[juneau]

I did look at the dual and triple core AMDs, but liked the idea of having the 4 cores for video editing and whatever would take advantage of them in the future - hopefully games that could scale their performance based on your setup.

I think what it really was is that I always built just to get by. Not this time - I'm splurgin' baby!

Ahhh the other cores will come in handy then if you're doing a lot of video encoding. Especially H.264.

Nice build. I was looking at Toms CPU charts and the 955 does pretty well compared to the Intel offerings (better than i7 920 in some games).

The new Amd DirectX 11 GPUs are coming in a few weeks...pricing is rumored at $300 and said to be much more powerful than 4890s.

Me too the 58XX series is looking immense

Juneau, from all the stuff I seen on benchmarks for various cards at really high res. , only the GPU was any problem. Looked at Guru3D and they stated that most of the dual core's above 2.8 never ran into a problem.In fact they also stated that there really wasnt a noticeable difference between dual's and quad's and that they thought the dual's actually performed better.

I have an E8400 clocked at 3.3 on this machine I have in Bangkok with the res maxed out for the monitor at 1280 x 1024 and it performs just fine with an 9800 GT oc'd. But I aint pushin 2 cards so cant say much for real world apps bogging down the CPU.

Makes me kinda sad that I wasted money on a quad for my laptop that I play on. Least thats what I thought I read. I could be mistaken.

At a really high res, like you said, the CPU speed becomes less apparent. However at lower resolutions where the gfx cards are doing less work, the CPU needs to be faster to get the data flowing to the GPU.

Paying for hardware that is sitting there twiddling it's thumbs is a big no no for me. I like to get my moneys worth at all time.

Your PC in Bangkok is the perfect scenario. You've removed the chance of a CPU bottleneck with your gfx card, so your gfx card will be running as fast as it can and not waiting for data.

A lot of things come into play when i'm choosing my CPU. Price, performance across the board, motherboard choice. And the mobo choice is another letdown on AMD's side. The options available is small and little that 'stand out', as all the main manufacturers are busy supporting Intel.

It would appear AMD are still paying for their mistakes with the original Phenom.

[Jed_Clampet]

And the mobo choice is another letdown on AMD's side. The options available is small and little that 'stand out', as all the main manufacturers are busy supporting Intel.

It would appear AMD are still paying for their mistakes with the original Phenom.

Agreed, there are few good choices for the AM3 platform. However, Tom's Hardware did a recent review of four 790FX AM3 boards, including the Gigabyte ma790fxt-ud5p and PCper did a in-depth review (good read, especially the conclusion) of this board and seems the clouds have cleared for AMD.

Tom's review:
Roundup: Four 790FX Socket AM3 Motherboards : 790FX Is Still The King - Review Tom's Hardware

PCPer MB review:
PC Perspective - Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P 790FX AM3 Motherboard Review