First of all, I sincerely hope that OP listens to people like TonyD and Zoom instead of you Heliocon, maybe you should read the link Tony posted which pretty much sums it all up:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...or,2895-4.html
Or will you say Toms hardware pulls fact out of their arse too?
The way you win an argument seems to be by calling anyone who doesn´t agree with you an ignorant idiot amongst other things, which is all fine but not the most convincing way to prove your point.
Now I would have just bailed out of this useless discussion where it not for the fact you seem persistent in pushing through a choice of CPU that would not benefit OP at all for his purposes and his budget, and this pisses me off.
I have posted several links, one directly related to your claim that BF:BC2 makes effective use of 8
virtual cores (which it doesnt imo) to try and prove HT is supposedly worth it for a pure gaming rig (since that is what we ARE talking about, OP states clearly he uses his rig solely for gaming purposes). The link I posted about BF:BC2 has a guy who obviously took the time to run a more extensive test then you have done (as a matter of fact I have yet to see you post any link to an unbiased source to prove any of your claims).
If you read reviews on the best CPU to get for gaming one thing at least is for certain, you'd be a fool going with a non Sandy Bridge CPU for your build right now.
Here is one more, they even run HT tests (for our gaming rig purposes note the fps dif on Left for Dead with HT on and off):
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...rs-review.html
For our purposes you can skip on to the gaming test section of that review.
The guys over @ bit-tech.net said it best:
Quote:
The Sandy Bridge lineup gives us some of the easiest conclusions to write that we've ever come across: the new range of Intel CPUs renders almost every other processor redundant and pointless. Only if you need incredible performance in multi-threaded applications should you look beyond the Core i5-2500K for your next CPU.
Take in mind the 2500k is actually not more expensive than the by now almost 3 year old i7-920 (even more cheap if judging by the prices I could find).
Lets for the sake of argument see how the top of the line CPU in the line you promote fairs against much more affordable Sandy Bridge CPU.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...ition-review/6
Conclusion:
The i5-2500K is roughly as quick as, and sometimes quicker than, the i7-990X in all but the most heavily multi-threaded tasks. It's also very overclockable, and considerably cheaper. As a result, only those running professional-grade multi-thread-optimised applications should consider the i7-990X, and even then, you'd be better off buying in an i7-980X, which is nearly as fast but £50 cheaper.
I´m not here to diss anyone for having a 980X or whatever, if you need it for programs like Maya or heavy video transcoding fair enough. It is people recommending them for gaming rigs I cannot possibly understand, not to mention recommending to buy the i7 920 or 960 Nehalem now instead of a 2500k or 2600k Sandy Bridge, that is just mindboggling to be honest, even more so because of the fact both are basically end of life and he will probably have a hard time even getting his hands on one if for some reason he wanted to. Even more annoying is when all they do to prove their own point is pull some facts out of their own arse, talk about how it will own in 2 years time (in two years time I can probably buy your 980X in the budget bin tbh) and personally attack people who don´t agree with them.
If you want to go for a HT processor I would do like others here said and go for the 2600k personally. A lot more affordable and actually performs great with games as well.
Let me pull on last review out of my bum:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i...600k-review/23
Now one more thing, the next time you personally insult me without proving ANYTHING yourself I will report you. If you can´t have a proper discussion without resorting to lame tactics like that it only proves how you are unable to prove your point using facts instead of blabbering on. Maybe the misses believed you when you tried to explain to her why you splashed out $1000 on a single processor but I sure as hell won´t be intimidated just because you resort to calling anyone who doesn´t agree with you a moron.
Peace out.