A barrage of questions regarding AMD/Intel nvidia and radeon

[Nikon]

Hey guys, here's the shpiel:

i have been budgeting out and working on building myself a new gaming rig. I have seen and heard lots of good things about AMD, and personally reccomend them. I was working a build around the new AMD phenom II x6 (i know its WAY overkill but i do alot of music/video editing and much, much more on the side) because it is downright the best bang for the buck on the market ATM.

with that on my mind, i went looking at graphics cards. I really wanted to go with a GTX 470 and eventually SLI another one. Herin is the problem, there doesnt seem to be a single AM3, or amd board in general out there that supports SLI. the only reason i can think of this is because ATI is a subdivision of AMD, and they wanted to keep to their own little world. this kind of upsets me because i have never used an ATI card for gaming, and the only one i have ever even seen arrived dead, and was sent back. However i will not let one bad card 'damn' the whole line.

i went ahead and set up a build with an ATI 5850 HD card and my fav cpu the phenom II x6. after all was said and done including everything except a monitor, the price came out to about 1400 bucks

Now on the complete flip side i have been looking int the I7 and I5 cpus. I have seen tons of people very happy with them, and the boards they go with support SLI, opening up my nvidia fantacy. so more or less....

What is your take on nVidia VS. ATI as far as gaming?

would i be better off going with my AMD + ATI, or AMD + a stand alone nVidia card?

or should i just go with the i7 or i5 and have SLI 470 GTX?

ultimately your opinions on the video cards with be one of my deciding factors. i have been sitting on this for a while now and i just need some more input. thanks in advance to everyone.

[rwest]

As far as gaming goes; I belive Nvidia is running behind ATI currently.
As you havve found out; SLI and ATI do not compute.
So yeh, if you really want to stick with Nividia and ruun dual cards, you're gonna have to go ntel.

You could lok for a board that supports crossfire, the ATI equivalent to SLI. Then you can get an AMD phenom II x6 processor and get a top end ATI card to run dual cards later.

One to thing to remember though, currently those extra cores aren't gonna do squat in a gaming
rig. If your looking to future proof maybe, and if you have any apps you're running that suport multi cores, then yeh go for it. BUt for gaming rig only - you'd be wasting money.

[glc]

I'd do some more homework before committing yourself to Fermi. Seems there are a lot of issues with it.

I'm biased, but I'd build an Intel with a single ATI card, the strongest card your budget can handle.

[Nikon]

yeah, thats the idea, and @ rwest: it IS kind of a future proof thing, but at the same time i use many obnoxiously CPU heavy programs, and my current core 2 duo is just not cutting it. the price of the CPU im looking at is only 20 bucks more than the quad core, so its really not even a difference. if i can get more power for the same bucks, why not do it right? =D

i guess ill start working on an intel based build. the best i can see i will be better off going intel for the purposes i have. ill have a build up for any input shortly.

[glc]

Look at an Asus P7P55D-E and an i7-860.

[Nikon]

Here is my 1st draft of an i7 build. it actually came out a little cheaper than my phenom build


EVGA 141-BL-E757-TR LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX X58 SLI LE Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920

ASUS ENGTX470/2DI/1280MD5 GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V

Thermaltake Spedo Advance Package

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB

Kingston HyperX 3GB (3 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

i left off some things that arnt really neccesary to be pposted here (heatsink keyboard etc.)

[glc]

I do not recommend X58 or EVGA. Please refer to my previous post. If you insist on SLI capability, the right board would be a P7P55D-E Pro. The best ram for it would be a 2x2 kit of dual channel.

Before you ask, the X58 chipset is known to be very fussy and the additional cost essentially gives you nothing.

[Doom]

- I've built two computers w/ EVGA boards and have not had any problems...but at the same time I appear to be the exception to the rule. They keep winning customer awards on newegg, which confuses me given the bad reputation they seem to have in many places. That being said...ASUS is a solid way to go. If you read mobo reviews on newegg...actually read the low ratings. A lot of the time, people cause their own problems by trying to screw with every possible BIOS setting or do dumb stuff and then blame the board. If a product get's 85% or better four and five egg reviews I'll consider it. Less than 80% and I'm dubious. Just my personal style.
- The GTX-470 is good...but I've had a few stability problems with mine. I'd rate it a 7 out of 10 based mainly on price and that the stability issues haven't been that bad so far (3-week ownership).
- I recommend against the SLI option in the future. My first build was on an EVGA board with two EVGA cards in SLI. I only saw a 10-20% increase in frames per second with the second card, and SLI only makes a big difference if you're running a 26" monitor or larger. With SLI...there are more stability and compatibility issues to work through...and doubling the investments on graphics cards doesn't double the performance. When I build now, I go for the best single card I can afford.

[Nikon]

TY for the input doom, and everyone else. I have had many good experiences with asus, and will definately take that into consideration. I was kind of iffy on the evga mobo too, just threw it in there as a base. SLI is definately something i am looking into, as in the future with new waves of graphics cards emerge i can link another 470 to kind of keep up (am i right on this or no?)

and btw i do run a 32 inch HD monitor. i will edit my build accordingly.

edit:

wow glc, thanks for that! saves a bunch (atleast on the mobo) and the cpu itself (from reviews) seems like a much better one for my purposes. definately going to do that..

[glc]

I still think you need to do some more research on that 470. There's a lot of complaints about it out there.

[Nikon]

here is draft 2 of this build. I still have the GTX 470 on there. i have been looking into it, and know about the heat issues, but tbh, with the case and setup i will have i really do not see it as an issue. perhaps some links might help shed some light on what you are saying. ( i have full faith in what you said, i just couldnt really find anything on my own)

Thermaltake Spedo Advance Package VI90001W2Z
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro LGA 1156 Intel P55
ASUS ENGTX470/2DI/1280MD5 GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V
Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W
Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler

once again cd drive/keyboard left off for simplicity.

any new thoughts on this revision?