System requirements to play Crysis and the MWLL mod.

[ToeBall]

I don't think 8GB is overkill. Right now my system can eat over 3GB while playing the mod, and I have no doubt my swap file isn't empty. I've only got 4GB of 1066DDR2 right now myself.

[Tiger842]

GTA4 eats RAM like it's a fat man at Pizza Hut. Crysis is and always will be a stuttering mess with 2 gigs or less. Get 4, or prepare for frustration.

[Sirius]

Intel chips do outclass AMD pretty heavily at this point, but the Phenom is priced to match and actually isn't that bad (9850 is equivalent to a low-end Q6600 I think). If you're on a tight budget it can be good value for money.

[matty^]

I don't think 8GB is overkill. Right now my system can eat over 3GB while playing the mod, and I have no doubt my swap file isn't empty. I've only got 4GB of 1066DDR2 right now myself.

i remember that MW4 Vengeance could use up to 292Mb of RAM..

and i just upgraded from 1 gig to two gigs .. 

[Cujo]

Intel chips do outclass AMD pretty heavily at this point, but the Phenom is priced to match and actually isn't that bad (9850 is equivalent to a low-end Q6600 I think). If you're on a tight budget it can be good value for money.

apples and oranges.  you can't compare the two really, they process things differently.  I like AMD because they're historically better multi-taskers and I hate Intel, I suspect they cut corners for better numbers and imo they're definately not as innovative.  I run a Phenom 9750 and I've never had to overclock it, it is amazing, my ram on the other hand, won't be 4GB until Christmas, only 2 atm.

[PukinDog]

Kudos to ^.

I also hate Intel, with a deep undying passion.  Intel (IMHO), has to build in the high cost of their marketing strategy, playing up their own product, which they know would lose out to the vast majority of consumers who are interested (now more than ever, than bang-for buck).

The AMD 9950 Black Edition @ 2.6Ghz is about the best $199.00 for a CPU you could spend, with the superb 9850 Black Edition (@2.5) running a close second at $189.00.

All in all, when running games, it is true that your motherboard, RAM, and more so your video card matter more than the CPU.  I just can't justify myself spending something like $500.00 just on a CPU, like in the case of the i7's and the Xtreme Quads Intel has out.

I have built four 9850s in the last year, all for paying customers, and each of them can't believe they only spent around $950 for the whole thing...(incl my fee NO MONITOR, case reused, cd drive reused, no RAID).  They got what they wanted, on an equal performace field (game-wise) with any Intel machine around.

If you are price savvy, and it really isn't hard, I agree that for less than $600...you can be in "the big leagues".... 

For online Gaming, and for those (like me) who don't need to download streaming video, while playing, while talking on Teamspeak, while playing solitaire, while fragging people on Crysis....AMD Quads..just plain cheaply, stably, reliably, kick butt, and even the little X2 5400+ Brisbane Dual Core, can give ANY Q6600 a run for his money....(with 8gb RAM and a ATI Radeon 4850 at least)!

BTW---for any overclockers out there....you can pick up the AMD 5400+ Brisbane X2 now for 69.99 @ the egg...and it is easily the most stable to 3.3 GHz Dual out there for that kind of money!

save your Intel CPU money for a good video card and RAM, you will thank me later....especially with VISTA.

[ToeBall]

I really hate when people generalize like that. You've got A+ certification so you know all there is to about PC's. I agree that motherboard and RAM are more important than CPU but there's a lot more involved than that. Lets look at the Kentfield vs The Agena, to continue your examples. They're roughly the same price and both quad core CPU's.

The Agena architecture has one glaring fault to me. 3 levels of cache. That means that for any instruction the processor has to perform, it must actually move that instruction 3 times before it gets around to actually running it (Northbridge to L3, L3 to L2, L2 to L1). Each movement takes 3 cycles, so it takes a total of 10 cycles to actually execute a single instruction. By comparison the Kentfield moves twice taking a total of 7 cycles to execute the instruction. So why did AMD do it? Because L3 cache is MUCH cheaper than L2. Also, by having all four cores share the same L3 cache, it simplifies architecture design, runs cooler, is more power efficient and makes a cheaper processor at the cost of performance.

So what about the Kentfields? Well, they run hotter, use more power, and a have a horrible bus design (the last was fixed in the i7, btw). To make a Quad core CPU Intel literally took two Core 2 Duos and stuck them in one. This means that the bus feeding them is starved for bandwidth. It also means that if one pair of cores gets swamped by the OS, the other two helping out is an expensive move across the bus again. To compensate Intel gave each core a large cache to hold instructions and give the OS a chance to adjust tasking of the cores before the swamping gets too excessive. This was also done to cut development time, costs, and money, not to mention provide a relatively cheap CPU.

As for innovation and profiteering, lets look at that one objectively also. AMD was the first to release 64-bit architecture to the consumer market. There was no demand nor support for it, but they did it as a marketing ploy, and it worked. By comparison Intel had been selling 64-bit Xeons and Itaniums to the server market for over a decade before that. Then again, AMD were the first to come up with the HyperTransport system to replace the traditional bus design, something Intel is now incorporating in the i7's.

Basically it's right up there with people who are die hard Ford or Chevy fans. There isn't a better product and anyone that says otherwise is wrong. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but keep in mind whatever you're buying will have its good and bad points and you should pick the one who's good points work best for you and bad points slow you down the least. It's the same with AMD vs Nvidia, or Windows vs Linux.

[Sirius]

Innovation doesn't really matter when you're shopping for performance, anyway. If the innovation in question makes it go faster, then it'll pay off - but it isn't a selling point in its own right unless you're buying chips for the feel-good factor or something like that... while that seems strange to me I guess others may see it differently.

[ToeBall]

e-peen again perhaps?

[ilkhan]

I also hate Intel, with a deep undying passion.  Intel (IMHO), has to build in the high cost of their marketing strategy, playing up their own product, which they know would lose out to the vast majority of consumers who are interested (now more than ever, than bang-for buck).

LOL
Saying AMD is great for bang for the buck is just saying you dont want the max level of performance.

You know why AMD doesn't have any thousand dollar chips? Because they dont have anything that can match the $300 level of performance, so why bother at three times the price.

Congrats on your perfectly stable 3.3Ghz toy. My i7 is running at 3.3Ghz right now, and if I went beyond the stock cooler I could take it to 4.0, without breaking a sweat, and being totally stable. Wolfdale duals are running at 4.5Ghz perfectly stable. Ive had the i7 running for a week now, and havent seen ANYTHING phase it as of yet. I dont expect it to either. (running 8 threads of prime95 WHILE playing crysis was fun, and didnt hurt my framerates one bit ).

The cheapest AMD quad without the TLB bug is the 9750. An extra $30 gets you the Q6600 or Q8200, either of which will wipe the floor with the AMD chip. Same ram, motherboards are <$100 either way. As to the FSB, yeah, it sucked. It still wiped ass with K10 in single socket operations.

AMD has a lot going for them, and I honestly hope they dont go under. But phenom, as is, just doesnt touch intel's perfornance level.

[CHHš Rampage]

What you say is true. AMD cannot compete with Intel on the higher end of the spectrum.  I build both Intel and AMD systems for gamers. At the mid-range and budget level, I can usually build a comparable AMD system for about $100USD less than an Intel system. The motherboards and processors just end to be a little cheaper for AMD. I have found that few people want or can afford a system like the one you describe unless they are truly a hardcore gamer or overclockig enthusiast. Most my systems sell for between $550 and $1000 and can play todays games at medium to very high settings. For someone on a budget I do not hesitate to recommend a higher end AMD dual or quad core. If someone is partial to Intel or wants maximum performance (or intends to overclock) I will recommend Intel.

I am for the most part impartial but I will admit a tendency to root for the underdog in most situations. I hope the Phenom II will offer consumers a cost efficient, high performance alternative to the all conquering Intel i7. I refuse to pay over $500 for a CPU and MB for my personal computer. I have seen an article claiming the Phenom II overclocked to almost 5GHZ on air using a $138 Gigabyte 790GX motherboard. If the can achieve that kind of an overclock then maybe there is some hope for healthy competition in the high performance CPU market on the near horizon. If not then I will just stick with my Q6600 for a while.

[PukinDog]

Toeball, I agree with you, I was generalizing...I was simply stating that..."IMHO", "for the money"...end of it.  Yes, I agree that most Intel processors can and will "blow the doors" off most all AMD products.  That's true.

It's also equally comparable to saying a Corvette will "blow the doors" off a Grand Prix.  While both those vehicles get you to point A and B, and both can break "the speed limit", the Grand Prix does it for nearly a 1/3 of the cost.

That's all I meant...so yes, for those who see the benefit of dropping that kind of money on a machine that will be defunct in four years...sure, go for it....

but my wallet will be thicker in the end...and so will my customers.  it's all just what each individual is looking for, and luckily, we aren't all the same.

<S>

[Sirius]

I was pretty sure the 9850 was comparable to a Q6600 actually, at least from benchmarks. Just that where the Phenoms leave off, the Core 2 Quads pick up.

It would be nice to see AMD get back in the game, of course. If the CPU industry doesn't have competition it's probably going to stagnate. Unfortunately it hasn't really been their day since early 2006 and the days of the Athlon 64 (I'm still using a 3200+, actually...), and I'm scratching my head as to when the game will change.

[Barbaric Soul]

I was pretty sure the 9850 was comparable to a Q6600 actually, at least from benchmarks. Just that where the Phenoms leave off, the Core 2 Quads pick up.

It would be nice to see AMD get back in the game, of course. If the CPU industry doesn't have competition it's probably going to stagnate. Unfortunately it hasn't really been their day since early 2006 and the days of the Athlon 64 (I'm still using a 3200+, actually...), and I'm scratching my head as to when the game will change.

AMD is about to release the Phenom II cpus, which according to early benchmark test released so far, will perform just alittle bit slower than the new intel I7 cpus and performs on par with the core2quad 9550. AMD fans definently have something to look foward to.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=79635

[Rockstone]

System requirements for smooth gameplay:

300 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme
40 GB of DDR2 1400 RAM
5 Terra byte Hard drive
4x 280 GTX

Did I forget anything else?