New computer, need Advice.

[Guest MAJ.Kaossilator=US=]

[quote='PVT.gamerk2=US=','http://clanunknownsoldiers.com/hq/thread/?postID=79153#post79153']In either case, its still better to wait, simply because older generation parts will probably get a 20% price cut across the board. :P[/QUOTE] There's not that much to indicate that there'll be a price drop right away once new products release. I know this is GPU but the phenomenon is the same - the 69xx has released, only has competition from the 580, and the 58/59xx series are still priced right around where they were for awhile before the 69xx series released. There's no real price drop at all for a bit. Plus, he'd rather wait until Bulldozer comes out, not Sandy Bridge, because there's almost never a reason to go Intel these days and spend the extra hundreds once AMD releases their counter-product. And yes, Bulldozer, like Sandy Bridge will require a new socket, but that was Decayed's point earlier [QUOTE]As for waiting for bulldozer/sandy bridge, that's always gonna be the case. Cause Ivy Bridge will be next and so on and so forth. Don't forget about light peak. Hey might as well wait another 2 years. If you have the money to be an early adopter then you have the money to build one now and buy one when the new chips come out. If not, you can probably stick with this current build for a year or two and you will be fine.[/QUOTE]

[Guest CC.Decayed=US=]

The thing about Bulldozer is, they still haven't really decided if it will work on AM3 or not yet... So there is still a chance. At least not that I've seen.

[Guest gamerk2]

[quote='CC.Decayed=US=','http://clanunknownsoldiers.com/hq/thread/?postID=79180#post79180']The thing about Bulldozer is, they still haven't really decided if it will work on AM3 or not yet... So there is still a chance. At least not that I've seen.[/QUOTE] No, Bulldozer is confirmed AM3+ ONLY, and not compatable with the AM3 socket. As for AMD being better, I find that a bit of a stretch. Lets face it, the Phenom II line competes against C2Q's if anything. Problem is, Intel really didn't DO anything with Nahelm, and massivly parrallel programs are not the norm yet, so i7's extra horsepower basically went to waste. Right now, seeing you already have a 965, I'd just hold for a few months and see what develops. If Sandy Bridge is as good as all the roumers indicate, then everything else will be under significant price pressure going forward, which is always a good thing. BTW, if anyone is wondering, I'm sitting pretty with my QX9650. I'm waiting for Ivy Bridge [possibly Haswell in 2013] and Windows 8, as on the CPU side, I see no reason to upgrade at the moment.

[Guest CC.Decayed=US=]

Ok, I hadn't seen the official confirmation but I just looked and it's true. Whether AMD is better than intel isn't really the question, it's usually more of a price/value question. Obviously nothing has compared to the best Intel strictly on performance since they came out but for gaming most of the AMD's are comparable in price value. When the hex came out for intel at 1k, and the hex came out for amd 300 the question people needed ask was simply, is the performance more than 1/3. And obviously it is. upgrading is always a need vs want scenario. You might assume that you will be fine with a QX9650 (and most likely you will) but say for instance you find out that BF3 really maxes out your computer then you might have to make the decision sooner than later. I'm sure this won't be the case, but I don't think it's completely out of the question.

[Guest RET.CW4.ThievingSix=US=]

There lies the problem of "future proofing". To do or not? That is the question. But the answer is a hard one, there's no right or wrong or even a "perfect balance" and one could sit and write page's on the topic but it's [U]almost[/U] impossible for anything to be future proof. That also leads to the single worst problem facing computers today, the processor problem. Processors with their current architecture cannot go any faster because the heat and power "going faster" will produce far surpass what any residential computer can handle and the memory is also bottlenecked. This leads to companies adding "core" after "core" to make their processor faster. But in actual fact almost no applications can handle even 6 cores because programming for 6 cores is much harder than programming for one due to the "dead lock" problem which occurs when 2 cores access the same file and obtain a lock simultaneously locking both out and causing both to wait for the other. This problem has to be avoided but its not easy. The only way for computers to go is via the brain, i.e synapse computing. Its the only way we will be able to reach maximum performance is if we emulate the brain which can perform trillions of operations per second taking in sight,smell,taste,feel and hearing to output a smart response to all parts of the body in order to do simple things such as run or catch a tennis ball. CPU's should follow this route, the operations should not be individual tasks but learned tasks, hence forming a reflex action, booting up should be a reflex occurring in less that a second much like blinking. So buy within your budget and buy 1 generation from the current is my rule. The previous generation will generally be 20-30% cheaper, slightly worse than the current generation but this you will not notice. This leaves room for you to buy the next generation up when the current generation changes(confusing?). Basically buy a 5990 instead of a 6990(its an example), because the 5990 will be cheaper and when the 7990 comes out you can buy a 6990 and still save money.

[Guest RET.CDR.CrAzY_NuTtA=US=]

Sandy Bridge is supposed to be officially announced during CES on 5th January, just a few days. I agree with other people's points. Wait and buy the best possible machine with as much money as you are willing to spend, keep saving and get a system right at the start of a new era of some sort of technology. It's a mistake i made myself,i bought my pc a few years ago for £1200(not too much), and 1-2 months later the i7s came out, and i only had the highest end Dual core. Whenever i get another pc im definitely gonna save up as much as i can, and also wait till the start of a new era of CPUs or GPUs or Mobos.

[Guest Dyaval]

would the 1090t be able powerful enough to process two rad 6970s grahpics cards?

[Guest CC.Decayed=US=]

Yeah, I'm not 100% sure what you mean by powerful enough, but you won't be choking from cpu. I mean even a dual core can handle 2 6970s. But you'd be bottlenecking. But dude if you are going 6970s, you should consider going 6950s and updating the bios and xfiring. They share the same gpu, but different memory. Can save you some money esp if you are going 2. Basically you want to make sure your not bottlenecking on cpu, hard drive, graphics, and ram. Ram is kind of a wash cause most DDR3 will be fine. But don't go all out on the GP and CPU and forget about the drive. Granted you can still get decent performance on a good mechanical, but if you are going all out might as well get a nice SSD and raid some drives for storage. It will also make your machine great for fraps.

[Guest RET.LTJG.Yong=US=]

I recommend getting a cheaper graphic card for a more powerful CPU back in the day it was the other way around but since most of the newer games are console ports especially the FPS games. The console port games generally use up more CPU power than a normal PC exclusive game because most consoles like PS3 and 360 have very powerful CPUs.

[Guest MAJ.Kaossilator=US=]

[quote='LTJG.Yong=US=','http://clanunknownsoldiers.com/hq/thread/?postID=79404#post79404']I recommend getting a cheaper graphic card for a more powerful CPU back in the day it was the other way around but since most of the newer games are console ports especially the FPS games. The console port games generally use up more CPU power than a normal PC exclusive game because most consoles like PS3 and 360 have very powerful CPUs.[/QUOTE] Well I don't [I]necessarily[/I] disagree with your point, I feel it can go either way. I tend to agree more with the 6950 from Decayed's post as they are basically the same card when you get right down to it. Also, the only way to get a better CPU is to scrap the AMD approach completely and go all Intel, which has its ups and downs as far as cost/benefit are concerned. While I'm not sold that console CPU's are "very powerful" when compared to high-end desktop cpu's due to their overall architecture, that could probably be debated a little bit based on what they're designed to do. It might also be worth pointing out to supplement the Lieutenant's point that the PS3 and the 360 don't really have good graphics cards at all. The PS3 has the equivalent of a GeForce 7800 architecture with 256Mb DDR3 when most desktop cards have at least 1Gb of DDR5 and the basic architecture is well away from this one. The 360 has something more like an ATI X1900, which is probably most closely related to the more common Radeon 4870, with a few differences. A buddy of mine bought BC2 for 360 and ended up hating the game because he couldn't stand the graphics. He saw me play on my Alienware M15x, which has a GTX260 M (light weight card so it can be in a laptop) and was blown away by how much better everything was. That being said, it's worth staying at least with the 6950 because EA/Dice just announced that BF3 ([URL='http://clanunknownsoldiers.com/barracks/showthread.php?14808-Battlefield-3&p=79396#post79396']per Pfc.Mental's post[/URL] about [URL='http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/04/battlefield-3-pc-receiving-special-effort-wont-run-on-windows-xp/']this release[/URL]) will run exclusively on DX11, which will quite simply demand a heftier card because a lot of the DX11 updates from 9 and 10 include a completely different approach to aliasing, surface rendering, etc.

[Guest CC.Decayed=US=]

[quote='LTJG.Yong=US=','http://clanunknownsoldiers.com/hq/thread/?postID=79404#post79404']I recommend getting a cheaper graphic card for a more powerful CPU back in the day it was the other way around but since most of the newer games are console ports especially the FPS games. The console port games generally use up more CPU power than a normal PC exclusive game because most consoles like PS3 and 360 have very powerful CPUs.[/QUOTE] He's getting both tho, I mean without getting into Intel vs AMD arguments the 1090t is the best AMD out there, currently. and again without getting into NV vs ati, with two 6970s he's getting the best AMD gpu out there. I'd consider going 1055t as the differences are not that great. and again the 6950s because right now they are the absolute best value because of the bios updatability. the i7 930 may be a bit better, but it's a wash for all intents and purposes. 970 is probably out of the mix. you can wait for sandy ofc but depends on how soon you want / need it. I think I would kinda add to what you said and say it's most important to find a good mix of cost and value for both the cpu and gpu. Yeah kind of middle road statement but I think going too high on either end chokes the other.

[Guest gamerk2]

At this point, considering the i5 2500K (Sandy Bridge) beats every AMD processor, including the 1100T, by a significant margin, while costing LESS ($179 at Microcenter), I see no reason to start a build using any other platform right now. Frankly, I see the Phenom II X6 route as obsolete given Sandy Bridge price point.

[Guest CC.Decayed=US=]

Yeah I'd have to agree esp at this price. Even mobos are showing up at like $150. sata3 support. Guess intel is learning a bit about pricing schemes from amd lol. [url]http://www.microcenter.com/storefronts/powerspec/index.html[/url]

[Guest Dyaval]

Okay in Normal speak and when i say normal i mean i have no computer experience / don't know the lingo etc etc , can someone tell me why the i5 2500k sandy bridge is better than the phenom ii 1090t. Also requesting to know the memory standard of the i5 2500k if anyone knows it. i looked around a little and found diff answers. also if u could tell me the best mobos to use for gaming/movies/music/possibly cad, in the order listed, w/ them id appreciate it. and when they say unlocked on a cpu do they mean its oc as high as itll go or what? whats the worst result i could expect if i tried to (RAID) 2 harddrives together and failed?