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I think I'll be agreeing with most people here when I say that honestly CPU is not an important factor in FPS for most games, with a Phenom II X4 easily providing 60FPS. Gamers haven't really been CPU limited at all since the 45nm Core 2 processors came out. I wish I had the graph, but I saw one of an i7 pwning by like 140fps vs 80 at 1024x768 and being exactly the same as a phenom at 1680x1050 (same gfx card used for all CPUs). Personally I suggest you get a sweet AMD CF motherboard (890FX or something) and dump the rest of your money into 6950 1GB Crossfire (1gb for 1080p, 2gb for 2560x1600). Whether you get a Phenom II X3/X4/X6 is pretty much irrelevant today is irrelevant, though I think 4 threads is becoming pretty standard so it's prolly worth it for the quad. X6 or not is up to you. Grab a black edition either way, it can't hurt the overclocking process and AMD FSB OC'ing can be a bit tweeky. Don't bother with the 980, it's basically the same as the 955BE but it costs more, flip the multiplier on the 955BE and you got a 965BE, 970BE, 975BE, 980BE, whatever. Maybe AMD handpicks the 980 chips but you're talking like 80$ for a few hundred mhz OC bump. I think it will be a few years before it even becomes clear what the next step from current hardware is. 2500K is a great CPU, it might help you out in a few years, but I doubt it, I suspect the x6 might be slightly more future proof, but I imagine by the time the x4 isn't doing it the x6 will be barely hanging on and you'll want to swap it anyway. I'm still on a 2008 790fx board with a phenom ii 940be and and I expect to be fine for the next few years.

Edited by shindaiwa21

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The most powerful CPU for the money right now is probably the i5 2500K (i5's perform almost the same as i7's and cost less.) Great overclocker, extremely powerful quad. Your other options are the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition or the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition. In terms of future-proofing the i5 2500K is probably the best closely followed by the Phenom II X6. Alternatively the 955BE is dirt cheap and will still run any game at like 80FPS, anything less than that that you get, it's your graphics card's fault. Any of these CPU's will be pieces of cake to overclock with unlocked multipliers. Any other models of CPU are basically the same with different default multipliers, and are not really worth anything unless you don't overclock. Personally I don't have a great deal of confidence that the i5 or the x6 will outlast the 955BE by much (overclocking included in that estimation,) you won't see any benefit from either the x6 or the i5 for at least a year, probably not even after that, so I advise you to get the 955BE, a nice x16/x16 crossfire board like a 790FX or 890FX (biostar TA890FXE used to be a great deal,) and dump the rest of your money into graphics cards to make sure you get that 80FPS your 955 can provide. As for graphics cards, I'd suggest HD 6950 1GB for 1920x1200/1080 or bellow, 2GB for above, if you have more money, a 2nd 6950 1/2GB, if you have even more money, a 6990. For a typical gamer it's probably better to go with a single HD 6950 then add another one for $75-100 off ebay in a year, as a single card will beast most games at 1920 and bellow. I'm not really up on nVidia cards but they usually cost more for the same performance and you need a rarer SLI chipset or a brand new 990 chipset motherboard for SLI if you go AMD. If you go intel, the board will run SLI or CF.

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