AMD or Intel?

[Codex]

Originally Posted by LoBiSoMeM

The same to people that likes to say that spend all your money to maximize the "gaming experience". This kind of people is really strange, because they usually know NOTHING about hardware and even bought the best hardware to maximize their experience. Peoplo who knows about hardware don't buy the most expensive rig, but the right rig.

And this is the flaw in your statement. You ASSUME people know nothing. I'm not going to get into slanging match over this but to me you've clearly got a closed mind set about why people ask such questions.

Getting back on topic. The question can be answered simply, what is your budget and do want to do with your rig?

For my last upgrade I wanted a crossfire rig. At the time socket 1156 just came out but socket 1366 was the "fastest" on paper. I built my rig on the 1156 socket rather than 1366 even though I could afford a 1366. Why?

a) Because at the time there were no games (and I believe still no games today) that can max out 2x 8xPCI express SLI/Crossfire setup.
b) With a little over clocking I could get the rig to perform close to a 1366 with a 970X chip. That's getting the i7 860 $300(AUS) chip to perform close to the i7970X $1200(AUS) chip.
c) price - Overall the 1156 based system was about 1/3 cheaper than a comparable 1366 system, hence the money I saved allowed me to get crossfire.

The "right" system is a myth, the "right" system for me may not be the "right" system for you. As I said, it all depends on what you want to do.

If my goal was bragging rights on overclockers.com or extreamesystems.org then yeah I'd go for a 1366 system with 980X chip / Quad SLI and bucket load Liquid Nitrogen for cooling, but I'd be up for a $7k+ system, great for getting the CPU to 5GHz but not very practical for everyday gaming.

Edit: Right now the Intel Core i7 2600K / Sandy Bridge is the new king. At $400(AUS), it even beats the 980X in pure memory bandwidth and processing power which is dam sexy.