# My i5 or X6 build? Help me decide.



## OneDown (Oct 18, 2010)

Hello there,
Im looking to complete a new build project and thought you lot are certainly the people who could help.

Its going too mainly be for 3D projects and rendering (nothing too serious) and depending what GPU I get then maybe some gaming (Crysis has always looked intriguing to me).

My budget is about £850. Excluding Monitor, Mouse and Keyboard.
I was originally looking at an Intel build but since being told to look at what AMD could offer, they seem better value for money but I dont know much compatibility wise.

Ill list the builds Im thinking off below. Any help is super appreciated!!

Intel build:

Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156)
Asus P7P55D-E Intel P55 Express 1156 Motherboard
Asus GeForce GTX 460 Direct CU TOP 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Corsair XMS3 4GB 1600Mhz C8
OCZ StealthXStream 2 600W Power Supply
Antec 300 Case
Samsung HD103SJ SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 3.5" Hard Drive
Sony AD-7260S-0B 24x Internal DVD±R/RW/Ram Drive - Black 

And the AMD build:

AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1075T 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail
Asus M4A89GTD PRO AMD 890GX AM3 Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 10666C8 1333MHz Dual-Channel (CMX4GX3M2A1333C8)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W Modular Silent SLI/Crossfire Ready ATX2.2 Power Supply
ATI FirePro V4800 Graphics Card OR...
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

And this all comes for only £625.70!!
So I have potentially another £200 to play with. what extra do you think I could do with guys or get extra with the money?
Would an SSD be a good option? Them Crucial ones look great!
Will my case handle the heat? I wont be doing any major OC'ing. 

Again, many thanks!


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## Deleted member 74752 (Oct 18, 2010)

All looks good but I would stick with the GTX 460 for either build.


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## OneDown (Oct 18, 2010)

rickss69 said:


> All looks good but I would stick with the GTX 460 for either build.



I do prefer the GTX460 but I didnt know if there would be any issues with the Phenom X6 as obviously AMD and ATi would work fine together. If not then ill definitely get trhe GTX460 then. Thanks.


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## JrRacinFan (Oct 18, 2010)

£200: that's quite a bit to work with, why not i7 8x0 instead?


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## OneDown (Oct 18, 2010)

JrRacinFan said:


> £200: that's quite a bit to work with, why not i7 8x0 instead?



Its just dawned on me that an i7 build could be a possibility. With an ASUS mobo maybe. Ill have a look at what prices they would be in replacement of an i5 and see what it comes out too, but unfortunately I have to go work now to fund this rig 

Ill post later with a possible rig. Or if anyone has any suggestions thatd be fantastic!?!


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## Deleted member 74752 (Oct 18, 2010)

I'm sure Jr was talking about the 860/875 i7 chips which are socket 1156.   (See my system spec's)


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## TheMailMan78 (Oct 18, 2010)

Honestly I would wait. Both side have new architecture right around the corner. However I would go i7 for pretty much everything. UNLESS you are doing any encoding. The x6 do really well in that area from what I read. Its not that the x6 is a bad CPU. Its just for the price the i7 is a better buy IMO. FYI see my specs.

Ah and as far as GPU goes DO NOT BUY a 460 yet. The AMD 6xxx series comes out this week. Wait and see what they offer.


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## BraveSoul (Oct 18, 2010)

your intel build looks solid, antec300 case will move plenty of air
_____________________________




Antec1200 filter project


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## JrRacinFan (Oct 18, 2010)

rickss69 said:


> I'm sure Jr was talking about the 860/875 i7 chips which are socket 1156.   (See my system spec's)



Yes, I was.  Thanks for clarifying!



TheMailMan78 said:


> Ah and as far as GPU goes DO NOT BUY a 460 yet. The AMD 6xxx series comes out this week. Wait and see what they offer.



Definitely agree. May want to specifically look at 6870's.


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## Konceptz (Oct 18, 2010)

If your going with intel I would recommend at least an i7 860. You mentioned rendering and the hyper threading is going to help.


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## ebolamonkey3 (Oct 18, 2010)

Wait. At least for the 6870 release on the GPU and if you're patient, wait for Sandy Bridge this Christmas. You should see price drops on both current i5/i7 processors and on video cards across the board from AMD and Nvidia.

B/t the two, since you've got 200 pounds to play with, I'd go w/ an i7 and get a SSD boot drive. And possible get a better case like the CM 690 II or upgrade that PSU to a better brand (Antec, maybe?) if you still have money left over.


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## Deleted member 74752 (Oct 18, 2010)

I wouldnt wait for spit - Anything that is coming in the near future will not blow the socks off anything that is available now, be it gpu or cpu. If you are waiting for a price drop, that is not guaranteed...


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## assaulter_99 (Oct 18, 2010)

rickss69 said:


> I wouldnt wait for spit - Anything that is coming in the near future will not blow the socks off anything that is available now, be it gpu or cpu. If you are waiting for a price drop, that is not guaranteed...



Really true, especially in the gpu area. Prices are merely the same bar some exceptions. It also seems rebranded cards are gonna sell for more, wtf? If you wanna wait, your call, but with hardware, you might as well wait forever!


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## TheMailMan78 (Oct 18, 2010)

Waiting a week to see what the GPUs will do will not hurt you. It would be ignorant not to wait.


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## Fishymachine (Oct 18, 2010)

GTX 460 performance(possibly more) with 115W load sounds good enough for half  a week's wait,also you might get it cheaper (230mm^2 vs ~300),or get a a 6870 for 200 http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17595715&postcount=12


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## Deleted member 74752 (Oct 18, 2010)

Speculation run rampant...Anything out there currently will work just great for a good while to come.


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## Goodman (Oct 18, 2010)

OneDown said:


> I do prefer the GTX460 but I didnt know if there would be any issues with the Phenom X6 as obviously AMD and ATi would work fine together.



Why would it matters?
Same with chipset Nvidia , intel or AMD any graphic cards will work as long as you got an PCI-E slot 


@ TheMailMan78 ,The greatest American Hero...
I completely forgot about this cool & funny TV-show , one more series that i got to look for now...  thx!


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## OneDown (Oct 18, 2010)

Ok, thanks for the input guys.

So Ive got this much worked out, Intel it is for sure. Could go with a Skt1156 i7 860 and possibly OC to get some extra juice out of it.
Im not looking to buy for a couple of weeks anyway so ill see what happens on the GPU side of things and hope/pray some good prices come along.

I am seriously debating an SSD now. Crucial is looking good price wise and performance rocks from what Ive read.

At worst I could hang out till my Bday, early December , and see if any new releases are around. Are there any approximate dates for new CPU's?

Whats available now will easily suit my needs for the next year, or less if I get greedy again, so I dont need to get amazing kit right now, but an i7 1156 860 seems a good option, and maybe use the extra cash for an SSD if I feel they are worth the extra.

Also, OC'able is an i7 860 on air?

Many thanks!


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## Dent1 (Oct 19, 2010)

OneDown said:


> Ok, thanks for the input guys.
> 
> So Ive got this much worked out, Intel it is for sure. Could go with a Skt1156 i7 860 and possibly OC to get some extra juice out of it.
> Im not looking to buy for a couple of weeks anyway so ill see what happens on the GPU side of things and hope/pray some good prices come along.
> ...



The new CPUs will not be coming anytime soon, we are talking about 1+ years from now.

I would build everything now, but hold off on the GPU for a few weeks until benchmarks of their performance is revealed. I wouldnt bother with SSD, you can get like 4x1.5TB disk drives and put them in RAID and you'll get better read/write performance for cheaper whilst benefiting from about 20 times the storage capacity.

Edit:

To answer your original rendering question, this might help.

In Cinebench R10 in the single threaded and in SPECapc 3dsmax the the i7 came out ontop, however in Cinebench R10's multi-threaded benchmark the X6 was signficantly faster, likewise in POV-Ray 3.73, the X6 was favoured again (excluding Intel the extreme edition). Its a mixed bag, I would think overall if your tasks are multi threaded the X6 would be the sensible choice, but both CPUs are good so its win/win.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/amds-sixcore-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-1055t-reviewed/7


Here is another review on rendering, with the exception of Photoshop, the X6 speaks for itself. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Phenom_II_X6_1090T/8.html


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## Achilles1600 (Oct 19, 2010)

Stick with the intel build, the core i3 i5 and i7 have hyper threading.


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## Dent1 (Oct 19, 2010)

Achilles1600 said:


> Stick with the intel build, the core i3 i5 and i7 have hyper threading.



The i3 is pathetic in comparison to the cheaper alternatives i.e. Athlon II X3 and X4, likewise the i5 5xx/6xx are also shaky against the Athlon II X4.

For serious activities that are not gaming related, I could only recommend the i5 7xx series and i7 series for Intel. Not sure how well hyperthreading helps it in rendering?


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## OneDown (Oct 19, 2010)

Dent1 said:


> The i3 is pathetic in comparison to the cheaper alternatives i.e. Athlon II X3 and X4, likewise the i5 5xx/6xx are also shaky against the Athlon II X4.
> 
> For serious activities that are not gaming related, I could only recommend the i5 7xx series and i7 series for Intel. Not sure how well hyperthreading helps it in rendering?



As with any other multi-threaded application it basically allows two tasks at any one time on each core, as to mimic 8 cores when theres actually only 4. The i7 deffinitely seems like the way to go.
The Arctic cooling freezer 7 looks like a star buy for a heatsink too?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-035-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395


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## Dent1 (Oct 19, 2010)

OneDown said:


> As with any other multi-threaded application it basically allows two tasks at any one time on each core, as to mimic 8 cores when theres actually only 4. The i7 deffinitely seems like the way to go.




In practice, the virtual cores does speed up things in certain tasks that I'm not disputing. What I'm disputing is why would one select a dual core i3 or a dual core variants of the i5 over a Athlon II X3/X4 in multi threaded applications the virtual cores are still slower as evident in the benchmarks including the rendering benchmarks in which you should be interested in, if your main priority is rendering. The quad core i5s and i7 vs the X6 is more of a subjective matter and offers generally mixed results, athough my own investigation shows more leanway to X6 in multi-threaded rendering whereas the quad core i5s and i7 had strengths in other taks unrelated to rendering.



OneDown said:


> The Arctic cooling freezer 7 looks like a star buy for a heatsink too?
> 
> http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-035-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395




I've heard great things about that heatsink. But I'd probably shoot a little higher.




Achilles1600 said:


> Your only saying that because your an AMD fanboy.



I can argue that you are disagreeing with me because you are a Intel fanboy, right?

Which part do you disagree with? because if you look carefully in rendering and rendering only, the Athlon II X4 murders the i3s and i5 5xx and i5 6xx, so my point is proven. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Athlon_II_X4_645/8.html


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## Dent1 (Oct 19, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Just keep in mind Dent we were all noobs at one time. Hes just going through his teething phase. You know "I'm a 133t Hax0r because I paid a lot of money for a pre-built!". But the good news is hes now asking how to make that pre-built better. Soon he will be building a custom rig and kicking himself in the ass for being a dick before.



Very true, I just wish the noobs would embrace what the gurus are saying sometimes so they could learn from us rather than always fight us with the classic "you are a fanboy of x or y company".

I actually deleted my previous post because it will probably add more fuel to the fire.


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## TheMailMan78 (Oct 19, 2010)

Dent1 said:


> Very true, I just wish the noobs would embrace what the gurus are saying sometimes so they could learn from us rather than always fight us with the classic "you are a fanboy of x or y company".
> 
> I actually deleted my previous post because it will probably add more fuel to the fire.



Like I said. Its a phase. We all go through it.


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## Hayder_Master (Nov 4, 2010)

take core i7 870 it's better than phenom x6 almost in evrything
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Phenom_II_X6_1090T/


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