SirWaWa

Hog54

crusheddream

much smoother much more responsive and seem everything just flowed a lot better windows 7  seemed a ton more responsive the cpu and RAM load is a lot lower now also GPU usage increased and best of all i put a 300 mhz overclock on my 950 without a vcore increase make sure you get an after market cooler the stock intel one sucks. whoever at intel got the bright idea to blow hot air right back down at the board and CPU needs to be kicked.
granted i went all out on my board and RAM
i recommend the classified3 if you can swing it awesome board.

I never noticed any difference between Intel or AMD as far as windows running or even games.If anything I have had alot less trouble with games running with an AMD platform than I ever did with an Intel.Unless you run synthetic benchmarks all day and do nothing else,you will never notice the difference.

switch to an i7

I have tried a I7.Windows worked the same way and games played the same way as my computer.Windows is windows.
 
If I built two identical computers and put Intel in one and AMD in the other with the same graphics cards and put the same games on them,you would never know which one is which.Both do what thier supposed to do.

I'd hold off from purchasing another 460 since the new 500 series Nvidia cards might make their appearence in stores next month.

c0dehunter

Then how come everyone is recommending Intel over AMD to me? I am confused, please clarify a bit. Should I keep my current AMD or go Intel?

 
 
Because everybody here is a benchmark whore.They dont care if its hundreds of dollars cheaper to build an AMD computer and get the same gaming.All they care about here is overclocking,benching and getting thier name on the top of the list.
 
I could build you an AMD system for less than $1000 that would blow any of these guys off online with thier $3000 computers.Get yourself a six core and you will be fine. 

Get yourself a six core and you will be fine.
 
How does an upgrade in CPU help me? By boosting the FPS? I mean are you advising this upgrade over a GPU?

c0dehunter

Then how come everyone is recommending Intel over AMD to me? I am confused, please clarify a bit. Should I keep my current AMD or go Intel?

 
You need a new motherboard and you should get a new CPU.  A more powerful CPU does wonders with a powerful GPU setup.  I went from a 3.8 GHz Intel Core 2 DUO E8400 to an Intel Core i5 760, and I own a GTX 480 which is slightly less powerful than GTX 460 SLI in any game with good SLI support.  Even at stock speeds the i5 760 improved frame rates especially minimum frame rates in many games.  Mafia II really likes more powerful CPUs - overclocking my i5 760 from stock 2.8 GHz to 4.2 GHz gave me a 13 FPS boost even at 1920 x 1080 which requires more GPU horsepower (larger resolution = more pixels = rendered by GPU).
 
Since you need a new CPU and motherboard, you might as well go with Intel, since they have better CPUs than AMD for the same price.  AMD's more expensive Phenom II X6 processors fall short to the Intel Core i7 930 and i7 950 in most games/benchmarks, and their less expensive Phenom II X6 processors fall short to the Intel Core i5 760.  Are the differences huge?  No, not at all.  But you do get slightly better performance for no added costs with Intel.  So might as well go with them.
 
Keep in mind that Intel's LGA 1156 platform (P55 and H55 motherboards) are much cheaper than the LGA 1366 platform (mostly X58 motherboards) and still offer great performance.  Here are the only advantages the LGA 1366 platform has over the LGA 1156 platform.
 

• More PCI-E lanes.  The PCI-E controller, which is on the X58 motherboard itself, offers 32 PCI-E lanes.  This allows you to run two cards in a x16 interface if you don't use other PCI-E slots.  With the LGA 1156 platform, the PCI-E controller is on the CPU and only offers 16 lanes.  So if you're running your two GTX 460s, they'll be in a x8 interface.  Does this harm performance?  Not for GTX 460s.  They don't have enough bandwidth to require more than a PCI-E 2.0 x 8 lane.  But top of the line video cards are bottlenecked by a PCI-E 2.0 x 8 slot, but barely.  But keep this in mind because your next video cards may perform better in a x16 lane.  However, EVGA offers two P55 motherboards (P55 FTW 200 and P55 Classified 200) with the NF200 chip that adds more PCI-E lanes.  With these motherboards your main card will be in a x16 lane while the second will be in x8.  But again it's more future proof.
• Triple Channel Memory.  You'll be using 6GB or 12GB of RAM most likely.  This is what will be recommended to you.  Does this extra system memory improve gaming performance?  Not really.  Benchmarks?  Perhaps a few.  It will prove useful in 3D rendering programs that's for sure.  

 
The more expensive LGA 1156 CPUs such as the i7 quad core processors (8xx series) and all LGA 1366 CPUs offer hyper-threading which is a multi-threading technology for the processors.  The i7 8xx series for example (as well as the i7 9xx series) have four cores and eight threads, while the Intel Core i5 quad core processors (750 and 760) have four cores and for threads.  And these additional threads do almost nothing for gaming performance from what I've read.  It is helpful for benchmarks and CPU intensive applications such as 3D modelling and video editing.  It will be a VERY long time before four cores and four threads is a bottleneck for games so the i5 760 is very "future proof".  So if you don't like the idea of spending lots of money on the X58 platform, you can save quite a bit of money and get a good P55 motherboard and Intel Core i5 760 CPU like I did, and you won't be missing out on anything now.  But keep in mind Intel's LGA 1155 "Sandy Bridge" platform (P67 motherboards) will be available soon (should be available Q1 2011).  These should offer some nice performance increases... it's the replacement for LGA 1156/P55.

hey mate i've just done a new build and went for  2 460sc ee SLI
 
the reason i went for i7 over AMD was that i couldnt find a mobo to support the sli set up that had 16x 16x speeds (im in new zealand) and AMD just doesnt support nvidia SLI??
 
get the i7 950 and asus p6 x58 d-e mobo with 6 gig of ram, the i7 turbo boost's when needed and eats its way through any and all games. the only thing limiting me is my crappy old monitor and microsoft 20$ keyboard. i've got the corsair 850tx PSU. next on my list is a H50 or H70 cpu cooler if i ever want to oc
 
you will have all the eye candy you want and more and wont need to upgrade for a while. thats my 2cnts but im happy with my set up :)
 
 
edit: with my cpu & mobo i can play bc2 with highest settings on the one card and it has 80-95% GPU usage you could upgrade now and get a 2nd 460 later

Not true you can do a i5 760 and P55 and still run SLI no problem
which if all your going to do is game i would recommend the i5 760 and a P55 SLI motherboard get yourself some nice 1600mhz RAM with tight timings and you will be good to go all day.

mayhem_lee

you dont need the i7 950.......

i priced a  i5 setup and the cpu was cheaper but the mobo cost more ( to get the 16x 16x 1x or 16x 8x 8 speeds) the price differnce came down to the ram, and 6gig of ram over 4gig seemed worth the price differnce for me.

if your going to upgrade you may aswell get full speed for your gpu 16x it can run on 8x (apparntly you will see little performance drop)

if you only play games then the stock cpu cooler is fine
to future proof yourself  a i7 will last longer with the x58 mobo able to support the 6core intel chip ( correct me if im wrong)

 
Yes socket LGA 1156 won't be getting any six core processors.  

c0dehunter

Thanks for your posts!
To [link=showprofile.aspx?memid=758823]crusheddream[/link],
according to this link, the Sabertooth does the 16x16:
2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (dual at x16/x16 mode)
http://www.overclock3d.ne...58_sabertooth_review/1

Is this correct? Thanks!

 
Yes as my other post said the X58 chipset has 32 lanes so you can run your cards in x16/x16 but a GTX 460 wouldn't lose performance in a PCI-E 2.0 x 8 slot anyway.

mayhem_lee

what ^^ he said that mobo will do 2 slots @ 16

@ boredgunner what if he wants to go 480 or 470 SLI at a later date when prices drop? having 16 x 2 will help for that

 
Not so much GTX 470s either but yeah I did mention that X58 is more future proof...

The more I look at microcenter, it becomes more apparent how much they rip you off.  Oh well, this is one of their better deals.
 
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0301254

the sound card should fit even with the cards in the PCI-E top slot there will be like a 1 cm gap between them the layout looks very similiar to my classy3 so it should fit. Yes you can run dual channel on a X58 i would recommend later upgrading to a tri channel kit but it will run dual.

It will fit in the top 1x slot or it even may fit in the bottom slot and yes the i7 supports single dual and tri channel RAM.

OK, I have narrowed my choices down to these:
 
X55 ($284.98 before tax)

Intel Core i5 760 Processor Boxed
Asus P7H55/USB3 LGA 1156 Intel H55 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
X58 ($429.98 before tax)

Intel Core i7-950 3.06GHz Boxed Processor
Asus Sabertooth X58 LGA 1366 X58 ATX Motherboard
 
There is a $145 in price difference I that can use towards a new SLI PSU. or get the X58 setup NOW, and save up for a SLI PSU and the 460 GPU.
 

If you are need a nice memory set by chance you can visit my topic at market place:
http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=656229
It is brand new in box :) and it has very low latency 6 @1600mhz I paid $220 for it on Newegg included tax and shipping. My loss is your gain :) Also, I will have a Corsair HX1000W soon when I done my transaction with baldee in marketplace. So you can have both ram and the PSU for $280. Pm me if you are interested in.