4 or 6 cores?

[Knytestorme]

Doing a new build to get back into boxing coming into Cata and have a choice to make.

1. AMD X6 + 8Gb Ram
2. i7 + 12Gb RAM

is the ability to put 1 client per core with no overlap on the AMD worth the loss of the extra system overhead the extra 4Gb of RAM will give me?

[MiRai]

You could just punch in AMD X6 Benchmarks and sift through all the results. I use www.tomshardware.com and www.anandtech.com for my basic benchmarking reviews. This article here shows that the i7 920 Nehalem [which has been replaced by the Bloomfield 930] beats out the AMD X6 in most benchmarks. You may or may not be worried about power consumption but the i7's 4 cores suck up less power than the AMD's 6 cores. At the moment I'm a fan of Intel, they seem to be heading in a good direction. I, myself, would only recommend AMD, in it's current state, if you were on a tight budget.

[Knytestorme]

The issue is, I'm not particularly concerned with benchmarks from toms, anand, hardocp, guru3d etc (even though I have been going over them all day here a work).

I posted here because I'm interested in seeing if I will see a performance improvement on the x6 while 5-boxing under IsBoxer and putting each client on a seperate core using processor affinity compared to having my main on 1 core and then 2 clients each on cores 2 and 3 with the i7 and that's not a question that will be able to be answered reasonably anywhere but here.

Budget isn't a concern, going with x6 + 8Gb + mb or i7 + 12Gb + mb are both in scope and either option is fine for everything else I need to do with the pc......my only decision between the 2 comes down to which will give me the smoother performace while 5-boxing.

[Owltoid]

depending on the mobo, the i7 could go up to 24Gb of RAM and may be more scalable for the future.

The processor just isn't an issue with my i7 920 (not a bottleneck at all). With Cata that may change, but I highly doubt it.

Just make sure to get an SSD

[Drizhal]

depending on the mobo, the i7 could go up to 24Gb of RAM and may be more scalable for the future.

The processor just isn't an issue with my i7 920 (not a bottleneck at all). With Cata that may change, but I highly doubt it.

Just make sure to get an SSD

This completely
I also have a 920 I7 with 12 gb of ram. Simply put....amazing...
Formerly a huge fan of AMB, actually had another computer that was an AMD Quad Black edition, which is still sluggish and slow in comparison.

And I as well went with an SSD symlinked folders etc. By far also awsome. If you do get one expect to pay almost $150-200 from the last I saw of them (Been a month or 2 though) don't skimp because there is a price/stat jump around the $140 area.

Good luck

[Owltoid]

I'm using a cheapo SSD and it works wonderfully. I bought it about a year ago, and even then it was only like $75 I think. Many will point you to the nicest Intel SSDs on the market, but for me the cheap RiData MLC version hasn't let me down and I see no lag (only during the very end of some WG fights, but somehow I doubt that's lag on my system)

[Dramoth]

You could always go for the i7 980x extreme with 6 cores.

i7 980x extreme

I have shifted back my rebuild schedule as I want the prices on the components to drop a bit more before I start buying them.

[skwert]

i7 980 extreme - $965 .. amd x4 965 - $180.

I gotta say, that's pretty extreme. I bought the AMD 965 when it first came out, and it hasn't let me down in the least. Are you guys doing more than 5-boxing with these crazy expensive CPUs? I haven't had a bit of lag with this CPU (8GB RAM, two-year-old hard drive), even in Dalaran.

To any poorer folks reading, no you don't need to spend crazy money to be able to enjoy 5-boxing.

[jstanthr]

in my opinion the i7 would perform better than the amd x6. i have tried them both with keyclone and 5 clients. the overlap from running the i7 hyperthreaded as 0-2,1-3,4-6,5-7,6-7 felt more responsive than just giving the x6 1 client per core with no hyperthreading. i also noticed an average of around 10-15fps better on the intel as well, i think that is mostly due to the x58 having more pci-e lanes than the 890fx of the amd. i tested the i7 with 6gb and the amd x6 with 8gb. used the same gfx in both (2x gtx280's in sli driving 2 displays) if you have any other questions feel free to msg me or email me at jdfelosi@live.com

[Knytestorme]

in my opinion the i7 would perform better than the amd x6. i have tried them both with keyclone and 5 clients. the overlap from running the i7 hyperthreaded as 0-2,1-3,4-6,5-7,6-7 felt more responsive than just giving the x6 1 client per core with no hyperthreading. i also noticed an average of around 10-15fps better on the intel as well, i think that is mostly due to the x58 having more pci-e lanes than the 890fx of the amd. i tested the i7 with 6gb and the amd x6 with 8gb. used the same gfx in both (2x gtx280's in sli driving 2 displays) if you have any other questions feel free to msg me or email me at jdfelosi@live.com

Hmmm, interesting feedback there thank you, but I think I have settled on the build and was just about to post the thread about it for feedback