AMD Bulldozer is here, oops!

[TonyD]

Originally Posted by BaronBonBaron

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Intel Sandy Bridge = High-End gaming.
AMD Phenom II = Medium level gaming.
AMD Athlon II = Budget level gaming.
AMD Llano = Entry-level budget desktop.

I wouldn’t agree with this, purely because ‘game stations’ due not require bleeding-edge processors to function correctly, merely adequate ones. The cpu forms only one part of a good gaming rig, and should be balanced with the other components – if your desire is quad graphics, you’ll require an overclocked 990x to get the full benefit of the all those cards; for a single or even dual cards, a Phenom-II is way fast enough. My current system is a bit quicker than my son’s i5 2500k machine because my 6970 is a bit quicker than his 5870, although the difference is hardly noticeable. There are a few games that need fast processors, but these are the exception, and even then the difference is largely academic. Most modern games don’t even require a quad-core cpu to work correctly, although more are starting to take advantage of them. (hopefully CloD in the not too distant future )

Edit: Having recently built a Llano –based system, I can confirm that you can game on one – hardly an ‘Entry-level budget desktop’.