Building an AMD PC... a few questions

[averyblund]

CaseyDDR said:

dahuman said:

Slimebeast said:

You have gotten many good advice NJ5, but the single most important thing in my opinion when buying a new system is to answer this question:
- how many years will I keep this CPU until the next CPU upgrade (or even a completely new system)?
(and this in relation to possible GPU upgrades too to some extent)

Personally I aim for 3 year cycles on the CPU and 1.5 year cycles on GPU, while some people may prefer for example 2 year CPU/2 year GPU cycles or any other combination for that matter. Partly I choose my strategy because I find it irritating to have to upgrade motherboard and RAM together with the CPU, but then it's a good strategy because of better-bang-for-your-buck too.

Oh, and please buy AMD and not Intel.
(not because they're better but because I love AMD lol)

can we not be fanboys about computer parts? ^^;;; a better part is a better part in the computer world lol. I'm Intel now but I was AMD for a good 8 years before and Intel before that and AMD before even that and then Intel...... it's what's better for the individual at the time that counts, not brand loyalty.

This.

 

And like others have said, the i5's and i7's just blow everything amd has away. 

I also build my PCs for a 3 year or more life expectancy, and there is nothing AMD puts out that will give you that. I've been running a Q6600 since release date and have FINALLY upgraded, and I still didn't really need to in all honesty, gaming length like that could never be received from AMD. 

 

Yes, you may be able to get phenoms a bit cheaper, but the few extra dollars you spend on an i5 or i7 is absolutely worth it. And the new chipset intel is staying with for some time will be the 1156, so in a year or two from now if I decided to buy a much better video card (260 gtx core 216 currently), i can easily upgrade my processor with it now. 

Also it's my understanding that Intel makes much more use of the DDR3 ram compared to AMD, as AMD just recently started using it.

Lets face it, AMD / ATI  are bargain shopping at Goodwill compared to Nvidia and Intel.

You must be kidding? ATI's current GPU's blow Nvidia's away at the moment. This is pretty much clear in any benchmark.