First off, Rican I really am not sure what point you are trying to make. So I'll do my best to address it.
Im trying to make the point that not everyone is concerned about the most performance, and AMD does have bang for your buck chips, such as the BE's which is what i run.
I haven't recommended intels on htpcs. In fact I don't bother with htpc threads often because its not my expertise (although if I remember Via owns the low power segment)
I was just speaking in general, i dont recall you ever posting in htpc build.
But honestly Rican I don't think your case warranted an Intel build. If you already had an AMD rig then there is no point tossing out a good one.
I built my system in November of 2007, I went from an Athlon XP 2800+ and 7300GT, to my current board with an X2 4800+ and 8500GT. I then got the upgrade bug and sold both for almost the same price i bought them for (about a month later) and got an 8800GT 256MB and X2 5000+ BE.
My problem is when people recommend whole gaming builds that are phenom based. There is no logical point in doing so (fanboyism does not count a slogial because it ignores facts).
I agree here, i dont recommened a phenom for gaming, except in the case of the 9850BE since it performs much better. I have always recommended dual cores, mostly the 5000+ BE since they perform better.
Yes cards are more important for fps, but that in and of itself doesn't mean you should get a slower cpu. Once again best bang for buck. Supreme Commander is an excellent example of cpu driven games. Most modern RTS and simulation games will also rely on a cpu but that's a moot point. You make the argument about 150fps versus 120fps. Personally I don't know what game your playing unless its 3 or 4 years old, But DX10 games only get that with super expensive rigs or low graphics. Most people here don't have $2k to spend, so every bit of performance you can get matters a good deal.
I was using random numbers as an example, im a heavy player of cod4 and have played some other games. A 3ghz dual core is plenty capable of running cpu intensive games quite well,in my experience.
When you say "slower", i think of anything under 3ghz.
I also want to contest this notion of a bandwagon. It's the first time I have heard anyone call Intel users that, but honestly if we are running for the performance Bandwagon then I sure hope there is a seat left for me. Lets think about this. Phenoms and Core2s have relatively the same price for their market segment. But the Competing ccore2s will consistently beat the Phenoms they are set against. I don't think there is a Phenom that can beat the gaming performance of an e8400 consistently. And the e8400 is not an expensive chip.
Again, like i stated earlier i hardly ever recommend a phenom, unless its the 9850BE and hopefully the new deneb based chips when they come out.
And you know what? I do a lot of work in FLStudio too. That is a very cpu demanding thing. When you are rendering in realtime multiple 3XOSC and Sytrus synths you can bog down a cpu pretty easy. In that case you want as much cpu as you can get.
FL Studio also relys on sound hardware, and a good interface can significantly lighten the load on the cpu. I use ASIO drivers as well and its made a world of difference coming from a 2.2ghz single core.
When you get down to it. This has nothing to do with what company's name is on the chip. It has everything to do with how fast it is and how much it costs. I understand AMD is working on a ULV Athlon for netbooks, I hope they roll it out soon, because there is gobs of money to be made, and the Atom isn't as fast as everyone says. Right now Core2 is king, and as much as it hurts for some people to realize that. We must. Not for our pride, or for out 3dmark scores, but because there are a lot of people who come here wnating recommendations and to recommend second best, no matter how big or small the gap is, would be doing them a great disservice.
No one is debating the fact that Intels chips perform faster clock for clock. But just because they do, that doesn't mean they are right for everyone. If someone makes a thread and wants the fastest system possible, then ill suggest Intel. If they want an htpc system, ill suggest an AMD system.
Sometimes, people just want the fastest AMD based system, so ill recommended something. Then you get the ood joe who comes in and says "well for this much you can get this Intel based system" and the usual stuff.
That to me feels like a bandwagon, because a person is trying to push a product onto someone else even after they said what they wanted already.
Its not even a fact of not having the money either, back when i built this system i had over 3K in the bank and i could have built a monster of a system and took all the records with major e-peenage...but i didn't because i don't feel a need to.
If you were getting 120fps or more this might not matter as much but with games like Crysis we could be talking about the difference between smooth game play and a slide show. I don't know about everyone else but when I buy a cpu I want the absolute best product available with my budget and I would get cpu x if its was .001% faster than cpu y because there is no reason to get a slower cpu.
Right now Intel has the best cpu's and there are plenty of benchmarks showing it. 2 years from now that could be a different story but for know I see no reason to get anything other than the best. There is nothing wrong with preferring AMD but that preference should be put aside when recommending hardware to others.
Crysis is still more gpu dependent than it is cpu.
Put an E8400 clocked at 4ghz in your rig, with the same card you have now versus my
3ghz 5000+ and a GTX 260 and lets run the game at 1680x1050 on high settings.
Think youll get more fps than me???
