After whooping on new AMD Processors, turns out intro samples where made on Deneb platform & had 4/6 mb Cache, less or as good as 710/720, yet promised at slightly Lower cost. Too BAD, Lies.

Going back to that Deneb design. The initial Athlon II X4 samples actually were Deneb based and as such some of the early samples were able to have their L3 caches unlocked. This is a thing of the past now as AMD switched over to the less expensive 'Propus' design for the Athlon II X4 620 and 630. Propus doesn't have any physical 6MB L3 cache at all, so your chances of activating it using the ACC will be really slim unless you run into a very early production batch.

The Propus based X4s are manufactured on AMD's 45nm node in Fab 1 in Dresden, with a die size roughly 60% of the Deneb die. Measured at 169 mm² this processor comes packed with roughly 300 million transistors and carries a 95W TDP.
Packed, Really, Back to X2 only X4. How UnCool. BTW to unlock 710/720 go into ACC & its default is voltage to Bios, Move that to Voltage to ALL cores & 4th core will open. or in some cases, theres actually box to open 4th core.

So In ALL, Maybe Intel IS Better Choice With Those whose Pockets Are Dep.

DRASHEK

With Jocular smile, after ALL those years of Screaming, There Arn't Enough Lanes to Support NT6, back in February 2006 calculated it'd be more than 40, more than 64, less than 128. People stopped commenting on My commentos' & called Pindit, Stupid. Now with Pci-e V.2, twice as fast per lane, 40 lanes still isn't enough. in fact: 120 lanes in orig pci-e specs be enough for Eastern Naj.

Ha,Ha. Wouldn't listening & actually reading White Papers be better than TG Daily pic of home builder that has over & over crashed peoples systems if pick it up into system? Cry Babies throw Stuff, Smart People think Out error.

First error is cpu 3DMa rating of 55 thousand. Next error is cost. When Phenom II AM3 710 @ 99$ w/fan & ppd can automatically open its forth core, hit near 3 Ghz/s & in BE720, Who Knows, maybe beat above beast Hz at 20% of Cost, Pub.lics NOT Thinking Right.Pubes, whom do you show off such wonderment?

Intel Makes TV Remote Controls. Yours at home is as reliable as any Intel cpu. With GloFlo going Chartered(ibm), BIG Changes Are in Flautee' Winds of Change.

In with Good, Out With BAD. High Cost Is BAD. Whats Difference, except Thud Your Pocket Makes When Trashed.

DRASHEK

You're comparing the i7 870 (CDN$ 695 in my city) with the Phenom II 965 ($289, at the same online store). The Phenom is already overkill for my needs. The i7 would serve me better only in one case - compressing DVDs - but I don't do that much and my hard drive is a bottleneck there anyway. No wonder Intel is into SSDs these days - without them the faster CPUs won't really shine.

I still think the i5 and i7 chips are overpriced right now and the Asus motherboard certainly is at $250. I will choose a Gigabyte board any day over Asus.
I guess this is aimed at the enthusiast market who have money to burn but the.
The Core i7 870 is priced at $569, ouch.

The i5 are much cheaper and would like to see a comparison against their faster clocked last gen counterparts like the Core 2 E7600 3.06GHz $139.

Good choice on the video card. I run a XFX GTX 285 with a Q9650 on a Gigabyte MOBO and nothing (Games) can touch it at 1920 x 1200.