Final Words
Most users that email questions about building a computer system are planning to build a midrange computer system. With a price range of $700 to $1700, this covers a huge number of potential choices. AMD's Phenom II has certainly leveled the competitive playing field in the midrange in recent months. With Phenom II AMD can now effectively compete throughout the midrange, at least to just under the price point of the Intel i7-920 at about $285. Core i7 still wins over any AMD CPU, but all the Core i7 parts have really been high-end up to now.
Looking at the current AMD and Intel CPU prices it easy to say with confidence that you can pick a price where both AMD and Intel compete and find roughly comparable performance from either manufacturer. Even the old "overclocking exception" no longer applies, as the 45nm AMD Phenom II parts are just as overclockable as the best Intel processors. That is very good news for potential AMD buyers.
So far so good, but then comes the $64,000 dollar question: with Intel LGA-1156 due to be announced next month should you buy one of the recommended midrange systems or wait for i5? Unfortunately, we don't have a clear answer for this question, and the answers we do have will not be satisfying to all readers.
If past experience is anything to go by, an announcement of i5 next month may mean it is still months before the new socket 1156 chips and boards are readily available in the market. In addition, early versions of new socket boards like the upcoming socket 1156 often take a while to mature; there are often issues with early boards with a new socket and chipset that take some time - and a few BIOS updates - to resolve. Prices for early adopters are also normally higher than where prices settle once the market pipelines are filled. Early adopters pay more, and since midrange buyers are not normally early adopters they should be less inclined to wait.
Finally, we don't yet have hard performance numbers to truly judge whether i5 is a large performance step forward or merely a technology refresh with a minor impact on performance. We have seen both from Intel in the past and we are still not far enough from the Pentium 4 to blindly trust that new Intel technology will push the performance envelope. We will have answers to the performance question in a few weeks, but that may or may not be a clear-cut answer. All of which leads to our conclusion.
If you are in the market for a new midrange system now you should buy it now. This is particularly true if you are planning to buy an AMD midrange system. Values are at an all-time high and i5 will not likely change the value equation much since Intel already controls the top performance spots. Intel does not have a history of "giving away" performance; they adjust prices when competitive pressures force them to.
History has proven that technology is always evolving and performance is always improving. Those who wait for the latest and greatest usually gain nothing and merely lose the waiting time for the newer technology. Whatever you buy today is almost always improved upon soon after you buy it. If value is good, as it is now, you have no real reason to wait and little to gain. If you have to have the latest then nothing we can write here will likely dissuade you from waiting for LGA-1156, but all indications are that socket 1366 will continue to be the performance king for a while yet.
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erple2 - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
To be fair, the article also suggests that you can add a second graphics card for more performance at almost every step of the way.While it's true that 750W is substantially more than you'd need at these performance levels, please also see:
http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.a...">http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.a...
There's some (though not that much) more subtlety to the choice than just picking for max wattage.
I suppose the argument could be made that you'd like to pick the PSU such that it's maximum efficiency is reached along where the system will spend the vast majority of it's time. The choice at the low end of the midrange seems spot on with 500-600W PSU's - they tend to reach their peak efficiencies in the 150-350W range, exactly where these lower midrange systems will consume from idle to maximum usage.
C'DaleRider - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
About the comment, "The Editors' Choice BFG Tech LS-550 power supply has been discontinued."You'd better tell BFG about this....they're still listing it on their website and, at least according to JG, product manager for BFG power supplies, they've just introduced a new updated LS-550.
Hmmmmmm.....
(Hint: just because Newegg doesn't stock it doesn't mean it has been discontinued.)
Wesley Fink - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
The current model that we tested and gave the Gold Editor's Choice award has been replaced with an updated model we have not tested. Newegg and others report the model we have tested has been discontinued.We often see "updated" power supplies performing very differently than the models they replace. Until we have some experience with the new LS-550 model we prefer to recommend power supply brands we know well like OCZ and Corsair.
Noya - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
I bought the UD3p and a Q8200 off eBay last year when live cashback made it a steal. With the xigmatek s1283 I was able to hit 3.3ghz (475x7) without even pushing the temps. Then the blue screens started a few months ago...it's now at stock 2.33ghz and still has a random blue screen once a week or more. Why you ask? Cheap ass Crucial Ballistix (DDR2-800), the ones that had great reviews in a memory shootout last Nov/Dec here or Toms. Now I have 8gb's of shite memory and reading about 'lifetime warranty' replacements sounds like I'll have to RMA every 3-6 months :( Damn you appealing rebates!Summer - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
... just THIS weekend @newegg.com. $20 price increase!SiliconDoc - Wednesday, August 5, 2009 - link
And the $30 rebate on the 4890 recommended is not only 20, so it's $180 AFTER rebate, or $200 bucks plus shipping, plus the hassles with the paperwork.Good timing for again for red rooster fans - amazing.
SiliconDoc - Wednesday, August 5, 2009 - link
And the $20 rebate on the 4870 recommended is GONE - it's $150 now.Summer - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
BTW, great article. I thought the mentioning of stretching the mid-level budget to get an i7 was dead on. The 920 is easily within reach if you're already pushing money into a similarly priced Phenom 955.GeorgeH - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
I was really hoping NVIDIA would find a way to compete with ATI before the LGA-1156 + back to school sales start, but with $170 4890's it's not looking good.Hopefully they'll have at least one competitive product by Christmas - the lack of real choice in the GPU space is getting boring. :)
erple2 - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
Right now, Gigabyte has a GTX275 available for 185 with a 20 dollar MIR. That's at least somewhat competitive with the 4890. only about 10-15% more expensive.