AMD's Phenom II processors

[Zachstar]

Ok it is benchmark time!

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16147

Overall in my view it is saddening. Unless these suddenly drop by 100 USD I highly doubt they have much of a chance to compete with i7.

Some tough realities remain for AMD, but I'd say they're now tempered by a little more hope. Although the Phenom II is a marked improvement over the original 65nm Phenom, AMD still can't match the fastest Core 2 Quads in clock-for-clock or outright performance. And obviously, the Core i7 is yet another step beyond the Core 2.

Look at what they are competing against!

Core i7 mobos completely blow this out of the water! And when windows 7 hits Core i7 will be the one selling like hotcakes.

Overall the system does cost more. But when you spend over 250 bucks on just the CPU. Well it will be a 1000 dollar build anyway so you mise well go with Core i7.

[Reece]

Hmm, I have an AM2+ mobo, with an X2 6000+ chip overclocked to 3.35ghz, I was thinking of upgrading the cpu to a quad this year, what would you recommend?

[Zachstar]

At 3.35 x2 you will be fine until next year at least. Unless you are crunching spreadsheets for walmart or something.

If yours works great now. Wait! Because Windows 7 with DX11 is going to give your games a big performance boost.

That way you can let the P2s and the Ci7s drop in price before you upgrade..

[Reece]

Sounds good to me, might save for an LCD screen instead, thanks.

[nikimcbee]

I'm curious what the lifespan is on a chip that over-clocked vs a non over-clocked chip?

[Reece]

It really just boils down to heat, the closer the chip is to 25 degrees C the longer it will last!

[AVGWarhawk]

The i7 is darn good from what I read. More expensive obviously but all the Intel cores are more expensive than the AMD cores. Just seems to be the status quo for cost. I'm happy with my AMD 9850's. I guess it boils down to what manufacture you like and how deep the pockets go.