AMD For Gaming?

[dfiguero]

Hi,

Newbie here. I'm trying to build a gaming system and one of the things that keep coming up is which processor to get. Several sites like Tom's hardware show Intel's lineup (specially the E6700 and above) to be better than AMD's when it comes to gaming.

However, I've seen many gamers build their boxes with AMD instead of Intel. My question for you guys is whether the reason for using AMD is price or if there's any other factors I should consider?

Thanks!

 

[Trepkos]

Intel C2D's are currently the better over AMD's X2 series due to overclockability.

But you could wait for AMD's new processors to help lessen the gap between the two.

 

[Nagasama]

price, yes...
the only reasons to get amd now are:
they are WAY cheaper, and perform pretty close in most cases.
you are a loyal amd fanboy like some of us and are waiting for the new kuma cpu. LOL.
the choice is yours, if you do not want to overclock, then a fast c2d would be good/great. but expensive.
or a high-end amd would be good, less expensive but not as fast.
or you could get an el cheapo x2 3600 brisbane (75ish for retail) overclock the **** out of it, and have a high end amd x2 for like, no money. this takes some effort. but not much...once you know what you are doing.

 

[Sora]

The X2 3600 is now 69 bucks retail...it can be OC'd to 2.5-2.8 on stock cooling with the 80 buck Tforce board and beat a stock E6420.

However if you have more money then the E6600 is the chip to go as it is just overall faster right now.

 

[dfiguero]

Well I'm not really someone who knows a lot about OCing so I would initially buy with the idea of leaving the CPU as is.

However, all my previous systems have used AMD processors and I am now just considering Intel because of the reviews I've read. Among the things I'm interested in when buying the CPU are:

1. Lifetime. How long until I have to upgrade because of gaming requirements

2. Do I really need to pay the Intel tax? Meaning, I play mostly WoW, some Civ IV, Diablo 2, BF2 and Obv and while they might be fine with AMD will I run into issues if I decide to do virtualization with something like VMWare running Linux or encoding an audio CD?

BTW, ty for your replies.

 

[Whirlwind]

Wow.....that AMD X2 3600 is a steal at that price!

 

[Nagasama]

Well I'm not really someone who knows a lot about OCing so I would initially buy with the idea of leaving the CPU as is.

However, all my previous systems have used AMD processors and I am now just considering Intel because of the reviews I've read. Among the things I'm interested in when buying the CPU are:

1. Lifetime. How long until I have to upgrade because of gaming requirements

2. Do I really need to pay the Intel tax? Meaning, I play mostly WoW, some Civ IV, Diablo 2, BF2 and Obv and while they might be fine with AMD will I run into issues if I decide to do virtualization with something like VMWare running Linux or encoding an audio CD?

BTW, ty for your replies.

1. who knows, man. i suppose that all depends on what kind of performance hit you are able to live with in the future. everything we list could be completely obsolete in 2-3 years...but it could be useable for the next 5-6.

2.no, you wont run into any issues. it will just take a few heartbeats longer.