Right i have a problem, i have been unable to decide between building an AMD Phenom XII 550 build or an Intel E8400 ( i will overclock either of them if i decide to purchase, so a decent cooler is also needed ) My proposed build for the AMD build was the following :
Asus M4A79XTD EVO Motherboard
Phenom XII 550 BE
Antec Earthwatts 750W PSU
Antec 900 case
Samsung spinpoint F3 1TB HDD
Asus GTX 275 (granted i was considering buying an Asus HD4890 if it was better or worthwhile... Theres a £2 difference between the GTX and the 4890 so either way it doesnt matter )
4GB OCZ Flex EX Cooler 1600MHz DDR3 RAM ( 7-6-6-24 )
(Optical drives etc taken care of)
And a Scythe Mini Ninja

OR the Intel build :
XFX nForce 750i SLI motherboard
Intel E8400
Antec Eathwatts 750W PSU
Antec 900
Samsung spinpoint F3 1TB HDD
Asus GTX 275 Or Asus HD4890
4GB OCZ Platinum 1200MHz DDR2 RAM ( 5-5-5-18 )
Aswell as the Scythe Mini Ninja.

I'm not sure whether i can afford to stretch to an i5 750 build ( what with it being the UK and pc parts being immensely overpriced... XD )
Still if you guys could help me out it would be a great help seeing as i have around £700 to spend at most and i have the money ready to spend so quick responses would be awesome lol.

I voted AMD because of the future upgradability of the AM3 platform and because socket 775 is going nowhere anymore, end of the line.

Also, you might be able to unlock the 550 into a quad, so that is a bonus if they're good cores

Phenom II. Unlike the E8400, it leaves you with an upgrade path.

the x2 550 because it's cheaper, just as good, and in this case, you don't get stuck with a crappy nvidia chipset
if you are good with OC'n videocards the 5770 would be nice too

Phenom II X2 550.

Phenom II. AM3 will be around for a while, 775 is dead.
same performance, better upgrade path.

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you guys said what i wanted say
one thing to say ..: check the quote in my sig , it says every thing ..

Hmmm, well i think its a clear cut win for the 550, i mean is it even worth me considering an i5 build then? Granted I'd be hard pushed to find the parts for the money i have, plus i'm still deciding between the HD4890 or the GTX275 ( ruling out the 5770 as i really cant be arsed with the volt mod needed to push it properly as it'll just risk frying it ) Another question, does anyone know if the Asus Motherboard has the ability to unlock the other cores on the 550 and if the PCIE slots are compatible with the GTX 275.

I'd say if you build an i5 system and skimp on some things, then it's not worth it. Get a really solid phenom II build, the 275 will work fine on AMD board, it just won't be able to SLI.
I'd say since the prices are so similar get the 275.....check-ah-dis out
maybe he'll ship to ya

775 will be phased out. The choice is obvious.

Hmmm, well i was just curious whether there was any performance difference between the AMD and the Intel platforms... however, i'm still torn between the HD4890 or the GTX275, as if i chose to buy a second gfx i would need to purchase a new board for the GTX, whereas the HD4890 i could simply buy another :/ I will be overclocking these graphics cards (without a volt mod) and im still curious as to whether which one would be best for gaming on a 22" LCD screen on games such as Modern warfare 2 (when it arrives) , Crysis, L4D ( and of course L4D2 when it gets here ) Plus i'm kind of an avid CSS player so which one of these two would give me the best performance

GTX 275 is slightly better than 4890 but since you may want to Crossfire 4890 seems good and so does 5770.. BTW For the price of GTX275 I think you should be able to get a 5850!!

Presizzly, 5850 has my vote!

Well i can get hold of the GTX275 from Asus for roughly £155 (UK) and the HD4890 is £153 However, the HD5850 here is roughly £203 and im not sure i'm comfortable paying all that money for a card with a reference cooler... i've seen temps reach 84C on Load... let alone if i decide to clock the card :/ Plus its £50 extra Lol.

lol that's perfectly acceptable, the card can handle that temp with ease, but yeah, due to the unfortunate difference in price (since over here 275's are equal in price to the 5850) get the 275

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardw...k-review-6.html

this one gets to 285 and 5850 performance level and beats them some times and can compete with 5870 but not by a large margin ..
get that one if you want 275 preoverclocked or get the standard and overclock it by your self , that is what i did and i got similar results ..and it was gigabyte too .. mine beats IVI's 4890

Yeah i think im going to get the 275 plus it being the Asus version, i might be lucky and it might come with voltage tweak if i feel like really pushing the card Lol.


Nice one, i think i'll save the money and buy the Asus 275 and clock it myself instead of paying the extra for a factory overclock i can achieve myself

that is what i meant i just wanted to show what it can do when overclocked ..


i never get a factory overclocked unless it has a better and effective cooling than the stock..

Ahhh, thanks for that man I think i'll have to take a few photos of this build then when i put it together

you must take photos and send em here and do not forget results , temps, scores , ...etc..

good luck ..

Haha of course, first build of mine so i might aswell make a big deal of it And i think i'm going to need all the luck i can get haha

I just noticed that in the above case (UK) Nvidia is comparable to ATI in terms of prices.. In my country (India) Nvidias are cheaper then ATIs of the same class (eg: GTS 250 1 GB retails cheaper than 4850 512MB by quite some margin -both stock reference cooling cards!!-)

In USA Nvidia is taking consumers for a ride, but elsewhere ATI is just as bad!!

yeah ATI's generous here in the states, which saddens me since if he lived in the states he could get a 4870x2 for around $250 (USD)