Which CPU would be best to get do you reckon?

Is the Phenom worth considering, or are they (AMD) still being hammered by Intel?

Ta for any advice.

The few hardware reviews I've seen for the Phenom say they don't hold a candle to the Core 2 Quads. They might do once the 64nm versions become available, but AMD had to rush them out under the older 92nm architecture.

I've recently gone for the Q6600 and its a good little processor. Doing the rounds in the sales at the moment too (overclockers had the retail for less than ebuyer were selling the OEM version the other week). Paired with Vista applications can be spread accross the 4 cores better than in XP, but you're going to need at least double the RAM for Vista.

If you play games and you've already got a PCI-e graphics card, keep using it until the DX10.1 cards become available some time in H1/08 (February?). The Intel chipsets will support crossfire and the nVidia nForce chipsets support SLi, just something to bare in mind if you're already using multiple graphics cards.

If you go for more than 3Gb of RAM go for a 64bit OS and a motherboard that supports at least 8Gb.

Avoid motherboards that take both DDR2 and DDR3 there are reports of performance hits even when the just using one type. Go for one or the other.

The Phenom is not living up to Intel I am afraid to say mate.

Also if I were buying I would go quad core, get the GO stepping Q6600, it is a great processor and also fairs very well in gaming along with oher applications. If you overclock it then you have an absolute monster of a processor at just £150!!

I would say 3.0Ghz Duo Core is the best option

Thanks guys... It was the Q6600 I was thinking of if I went x4...

I'm not a gamer really, certainly not high end stuff... I like the odd footy game now and again, but that's about it....

But I do do a fair bit of video work...

My current mobo has a terminal USB problem, so I'm using this as an excuse to upgrade!

I'll probably steer away from Vista for now, as I'm not overly keen, and my legit version is only a Home Basic 32bit version. (I'll wait and see what happens after sp1 get released before I fuly decide if I go to 64bit Vista )

I've got a kosher XP pro 32 and 64bit license so I'll probably just stick with XP for now... (Though 64bit XP has given me issues before...)

@ maarksparky - Why mate? What do you base that on?

The 3ghz would be the 6850 right?

Obviously that is faster at stock than the quad where apps do not take advatange of all the cores, but the way things are going and if your not gaming then I would deffo get the Q6600, make sure it has GO stepping and you could easily push that to 3ghz and have a much better CPU.

In general there is not much between them, but obviously the more cores do come in useful when certain programs look for them.

Originally Posted by digicol

The 3ghz would be the 6850 right?

Obviously that is faster at stock than the quad where apps do not take advatange of all the cores, but the way things are going and if your not gaming then I would deffo get the Q6600, make sure it has GO stepping and you could easily push that to 3ghz and have a much better CPU.

In general there is not much between them, but obviously the more cores do come in useful when certain programs look for them.

Thanks Digicol...

I think I'll probably follow your advice...

Got any advice regarding Mobo's, seeing as you seem pretty clued up...? I think I'll have to settle for a mid range mobo, as my budget is limited and I've got to get a GFX card, RAM and ideally a new TFT monitor too, yet...

I recently went for Q6600 £152.57 paired with MSI P35 Platinum £101.32 and 4Gb OCZ PC2-5400 £73.32, been rock solid and fast. Cheapest I could find at the time was yoyotech.co.uk, but worth shopping around.

go for any of the Abit IP35`s and they have a great forum should you run into any problems

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...bid=913&mfrid=

http://forum.abit-usa.com/index.php

I am using a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R. I would definately recommend it with 4gb ram.