Which way should I hook up a 4870??? Which Processor?

[pc_boy]

Allright, I've been off for a while but I'm about to put together a new build.

I want something in the 700 USD range, so the 2 CPUs I've been looking at are the Q9550 and X4 955.
I'm going towards a 4870 because it's a good bang-for-the-buck card, I haven't been able to find any other card that good for that much money.

So far I think the X4 955 wins, it's $199 on newegg and beats the Q9550 on most tests (barely) and does good with graphics.

But I don't know if the 4870 will bottleneck the 955, maybe this quad core is too good for the 4870. So the point is that I want to get the right combo so that both the CPU and GPU will work together at their limits, and I don't know what that is. Will a phenom 940 or a Q8400 yorkfield do just as well with this card? If yes, then I'll get that because they are cheaper.

Also, I know I can get an i7 for 280 bucks which is a beast CPU, but I dont know if it will be that much better in games because of the 4870 card. See the point?

So I want some of you up-to-date gurus to fill me in. I haven't been following this stuff closely since the P4/AMD 64 3400+ "era"

thx

 

[Yami]

A 4870 will not bottleneck/be bottlenecked by an i7/Q9550/PII 955.

Any of those CPUs would be good; i7 is currently the best but requires expensive mobos and DDR3 RAM (which is coming down in price but it's still about 1.5-2 times the price of DDR2).

 

[pc_boy]

ye, the cheapest mobo for the i7 is around 170, and I can get a really good AM3 mobo for 110.

Also, how's the heat on the phenom 955?

And how is the heat on the 4870?

 

[dirkpitt45]

I've got the 940, which is the DDR2 version of the 955 I'm pretty sure. With a core contact I usually idle around 28-30c, with a horrible airflow case. Right now I'm at idle 39-40c but its 32c ambient soo.

I've read that the 4870 can get a little hot, but every card does, although I've never seen my 4850 above 67, don't even wanna bother testing that today though . Weirdest weather lately, cool all summer and all morning today, but now its ridiculously hot for where I live.