AMD or Intel?
 

I need to build a complete new system for CoD,so anyone know if Oleg prefers AMD or Intel?
If there's a difference which is better?

if your looking to get the lastest...the sandybridge processor from intel have had good reviews (although there is a problem with the new MB's atm due to be fixed soon)...but this is an ever evolving market and i'm pretty sure within 5 posts you'll get someone saying AMD are the best.

For our gaming needs AMD X4 970 is the best bang for your money and it over-clocks easily. You don't need the latest Hex cores from either Intel (spawn of the devil himself :-P) or AMD. AMD are also a lot cheaper for relative performance.

Check the reviews for the AMD X4 965 / 970 / 975 and you will see that they are on par with the top end processors for gaming.

i was wrong it wasn't five posts^^

@ Leggit: here's another one: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...d=685&Itemid=8

i like the titel: the fast ENOUGH computer....it's soo true

not much use to me bud.....i need the fastest computer i can get.

Then wait for the next CPU to come out. If that one is not fast enough, wait some more. Rinse, repeat.

;)

-If you want the fastest CPU out now, you'll end up with the Intel i7 2600k.
-If you want the fastest system, you will need to look at the benchmarks on motherboards and memory too.
-if you want the fastest game experience, look at graphics cards.
-if you have a budget to stick to; decide on the graphics card first, with taking the resolution you'll be running into account, then the CPU, then motherboard an memory.

@Dutchman: If you're from the Netherlands, you could have a look at Tweakers.net and their BestBuyGuide.

I don't believe Oleg or the devs have favoured one or the other. I wouldn't expect that it would matter either way - so long as the specs of the system are sufficient. (there may (?) be a difference with graphics card - nVidia or ATI , but we'll probably have to wait until release to find out.)

At the moment the general recommendation in the mags / press is for Intel Sandy Bridge (1155 socket) which is streets ahead of anything else - especially on a performance / cost basis. This is verified by several PC magazines and various online sites testing - with hard figures to back it up.

I intend going this route myself when I upgrade my system - i5-2500K to be precise (or i7-2600K as mentioned above - more expensive but not massively more powerful for gaming...)

The big issue is that Intel had a problem with their chipsets for the motherboards that run Sandy Bridge, and there is currently a month or more delay before they will be available again.

But if you want the best cost / performance returns then this is what I would recommend.

Suggest you do some googling and research to satisfy yourself that these recommendations are legit as there is conflicting advice in this thread.

first of all i would like dutch for bringing this up. i have being toying between a i25005k with a gtx 480 or a 970be with a gtx 570 both with corsair 8gb ram and heat spreader.

I'm always amazed how the average simmer knows nothing about hardware, but believes that knows everything...

This nonsense topic - with the amazing initial question and all discussion - is the final proof that I need.

People waste a lot of money for nothing in performance, as usual.

You know this sort of attitude really gets to me. It all depends on what you consider a waste and your financial circumstances.

To me it's not a waste of money because I want my games to run as smooth as possible, it's my past time, my hobby, my escape from work.

I work hard for my money and I like having the best and most up to date hardware, so I upgrade every 12 months or so. My last upgrade was in Jan 2010 and guess what, I'll be doing it again in March for CoD.

Instead of bitching about what other people do with THEIR money, why don't you contribute to the original question ... or better yet get a job.

I think it's best if we drop this. And foul language won't solve anything, it only makes things worse. We want a forum that stands out from the rest. We're here to learn and unbased remarks about someone's financial status, level of knowledge and other personal preferences or topics which are beyond the scope of this flight sim and our computers are not well suited here.

Personally, I like AMD, just because it's the underdog with the ability to surprise at times. The most power is delivered by Intel but since we don't yet know how CoD will run on multiple cores and how efficient the engine will be on the different architectures there's still a lot of guessing involved.

You are an educated person. People who can't even use Google to know the basis of the two major brands of personal computers CPU and ask abou Oleg's personal preferences between AMD or Intel, no comments about...

The same to people that likes to say that spend all your money to maximize the "gaming experience". This kind of people is really strange, because they usually know NOTHING about hardware and even bought the best hardware to maximize their experience. Peoplo who knows about hardware don't buy the most expensive rig, but the right rig.

And the question about AMD X Intel is really stupid, without any context. Simple as that, people can use all foul words they want, but will still stupid.

LoBiSoMeM, out of curiosity what do you have in your rig, or plan to have?

And this is the flaw in your statement. You ASSUME people know nothing. I'm not going to get into slanging match over this but to me you've clearly got a closed mind set about why people ask such questions.

Getting back on topic. The question can be answered simply, what is your budget and do want to do with your rig?

For my last upgrade I wanted a crossfire rig. At the time socket 1156 just came out but socket 1366 was the "fastest" on paper. I built my rig on the 1156 socket rather than 1366 even though I could afford a 1366. Why?

a) Because at the time there were no games (and I believe still no games today) that can max out 2x 8xPCI express SLI/Crossfire setup.
b) With a little over clocking I could get the rig to perform close to a 1366 with a 970X chip. That's getting the i7 860 $300(AUS) chip to perform close to the i7970X $1200(AUS) chip.
c) price - Overall the 1156 based system was about 1/3 cheaper than a comparable 1366 system, hence the money I saved allowed me to get crossfire.

The "right" system is a myth, the "right" system for me may not be the "right" system for you. As I said, it all depends on what you want to do.

If my goal was bragging rights on overclockers.com or extreamesystems.org then yeah I'd go for a 1366 system with 980X chip / Quad SLI and bucket load Liquid Nitrogen for cooling, but I'd be up for a $7k+ system, great for getting the CPU to 5GHz but not very practical for everyday gaming.

Edit: Right now the Intel Core i7 2600K / Sandy Bridge is the new king. At $400(AUS), it even beats the 980X in pure memory bandwidth and processing power which is dam sexy.

The "right system" will be upgraded more often for less $, while the top end machine lasts a bit longer.

In fact you just change the investment point on the timescale, not more, not less.

Well maybe you could save ~15-20%, by upgrading more often, the question is: Is it worth it?

(I am one of the second group btw)

All this right system is a right laugh:) I remember when i first got il2 10 years ago and i started to upgrade my computer. intel to amd another 2 AMDs back to intel and so forth every year or 18 months i upgraded. I never bought the latest of fastest just good value components. Dont get me started on Graphics cards because i have changed them every 12 months at least over the last 10 years. Get the best Vlaue system you can afford and hope it runs il2 COD at a decent speed. then look to the future because i see more upgrades on the way.

a quick reminder of the chips i ran il2 with from memory.

intel pentium III 667mhz (speed demon)
Amd 1500 (I think this was the speed)
Amd 1700 (this overclocked well)
Amd 2500 (another good chip for overclocking but ran hot)
intel core 2 pentium 2200 (overclocked well and ran cool)
intel core 2 pentium 2500 (i think this was my last intel chip cant remember)
AMD Athlon 2 x4 645 runs at 3.3ghz (mycurrent system which tied with 4 gig of ram and a AMD 6850 i hope to get decent fps out of the upcoming il2 COD)

I am pretty sure that i have missed a couple of chips out of the list due to my advancing age but it does give you an idea of the path you will be taking when this new sim comes out! an expensive path :grin:

Whilst the I7-2600K is the fastest kid on the block (especially when overclocked up to 5 or 6 Ghz) most gaming sites are recommending the i5-2500k for gaming because the hyper-threading you gain by paying extra for the 2600 series is rarely used by games.

Their was a recent recall of early Sandy Bridge motherboards (due to occasional issues if you had more than 2 SATA devices) . In theory none of these early faulty boards should still be out in the wild but its best to double check when purchasing.


EDIT:

By the way there are only two current Sandy bridge chipsets. These are:

H67 – Enables the ability to use the onboard GPU on the CPU. Does not allow overclocking (even with a K processor). For low end/mid range systems.
P67 – Disables onboard GPU, you require a graphics card to use it. Allows overclocking with a K series processor. Suited to gaming.

I have a cheap Phenom X4 3.4GHz, in a cheap but good ASUS MB, 4GB RAM and a ATI 4850.

I'm using the same MB for 2 upgrades, X2 4000+ > X2 6000+ and now the Phenom.

For CoD and other titles I'll just bought a new VGA and use the old 4850 in other desktop I have. Maybe more 2 or 4 GB of RAM, it's cheap now.

And will runs CoD ok as people with much more expensive rigs. One quad core with +3GHz is fast enought for CoD, RoF, DCS... And 4GB of RAM will be ok too. If CoD benefit for more RAM, cheapest upgrade!

People have a lot of options to build one system. I never understand these topics about "what is best"... You can build a great gaming system with Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, ATI... Just need to research o little and have the budget in mind.

Now your talking :)

That's what I put to work in my new gaming machine. i5-2500k, 8 Gig RAM, GTX 570. I am absolutly satisfied with it.

If the Intel 1155 chipset bug didn't surface I would recommend it wholeheartedly. But for now it's better to wait for the fixed chipset, before going the Sandy Bridge route.

Yeah i have about the same except ive got a 4870, my missus has got a 5770, so i will try cod on that one, and see what i need to get after the release! it runs smooth enough at present.

did I not point out people do not need the hottest processor for this application !

At tomshardware.com there is a good read about this: Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: January 2011

It also has a nice gaming CPU Hierarchy Chart, which showed me that i not have to upgrade yet from my Q9650. It is still fast enough.

For FSX I can recommend Intel I7-2600K. First time really high FPS!!!

For $330 it's hard to argue against a I7-2600K, esp if you already have some DDR3 RAM on hand.

For that much you can get a high end AMD phenom AND high end video card which will run CoD fine.

I,m thinking about buying a laptop,so i can take it with me....much more expensive though,but there are some nice laptops around,i especially like the Asus ones;

Asus K72JR-TY159V(i5-7 core,Ati 1gig,4gigs of memory)should run CoD fine!

http://img.cbcdn.net/products/112575...500&height=500

We will have to wait for some IL2 CLoDO benchmarks to be able to answer which CPU brand is the better one..
Most games in general need GPU power and not CPU power. But sims with alot of calculation going on can really benefit from CPU power. But then it also depends if they like high frequency, many cores, lots of L2 and L3 cache etc.. All CPU models have their little peculiarities that differentiate them from others.

I'm still running IL2 on my Win XP, overclocked Core 2 Duo E8400, 2 GIG RAM and Radeon 4850.. It runs very smooth and nice!
What affected my expirience the most was conf.ini and it's settings. When I got that worked out it was no problems with FPS or stutters.
We might see the same With CLoDO, alot of the performance can be had from tweaking the settings..

I haven't been in the gaming hardware market since maybe 2003. I'm completely overwhelmed by all the choices these days; I've completely lost touch!

I'm tending towards the intel i5-2400 what do you guys think?

Tom's hardware reckons that it's only marginally worse than the i5-2500K and you won't even notice the difference, plus it's much cheaper. It also has some good over-all scores beating a few of the i7 series. Only problem is this intel H67/P67 chipset issue that kind of stops you buying a Socket 1155 motherboard at the moment! ;)

Also why is anyone even going for the i5-2500k rather than just the i5-2500? Look at the specs on the intel site. The only difference I can see is that the 'k' version has virtualization technology that you won't need for gaming unless you are running Xen etc. for dedicated servers or something :grin: why pay the extra for the 'k'??? In fact the 2400 has VT; So you want to run Xen? Then get that :)

The fact that 2500k can reach 5GHz makes a pretty strong case. 2600k on the other hand equals waste of money for gaming. Skip the 2400 and go for the 2500 - once chipset issues are sorted out. And don't believe everything Tom says. ;)

Only clever thing to do NOW is to wait until next month to see how good or how bad AMD Bulldozer is.

The K versions are the only overclockable ones.

And as T}{OR says it is possible to get up to VERY high speeds - 4.9 to 5Ghz.

Also, tests I read in Custom PC magazine suggested a larger difference between the i5-2400 and i5-2500 than Tom's Hardware apparently does (and a much bigger difference than that between the i5-2500 and i7-2600)

Reviews I have read are all in agreement - the 2500K is the one to get for gaming.

I didn't realise they were launching so soon.

In that case, and given the fact that you won't be able to get a P67 motherboard for another month or so, definitely the sensible thing to do is wait.

Unless someone has a link with the latest info...

There are rumors that we will know more about the new Bulldozers till the end of this month. At best they will be released in late April / May - or sometime in Q2. Again, this is a rumor.

Before getting a sandy bridge chip... you might want to read up on thier PCIE bandwidth and Memory.
From what I have read, they don't have near the lanes that the X58 has. Only 16 lanes. You wont see that upgraded until the the new 1356 socket comes out Q3 '11.

Short term builds, Id say they would be ok. But Ive never liked having to upgrade all the time. Usually the PCs I build have a working life of 4-5 years.
Considering the 1155 is more of a mainstream board, it would make a little more sense with an X58 now, or wait till the 1356 boards come out towards the end of the year.

Im building a new X58 I7 990x machine as soon as the new gigabyte or asus board is available. (G1 Assassin, X58-OC or the asus Rampage III black edition)

Dont know if COD will use physx yet, but having two or three video cards is a bit more important IMHO. If physx is used, I'll add a third card dedicated to physx.

Also.. on the sandy bridge boards, its DUAL channel RAM, not TRIPLE. So again.. X58 I believe is still the way to go.

Your buying a Ferrari to drive in a parking garage!! Dont waste so much money.

Just get an AMD X6 and you'll be fine and save lots of money.

Errr... say what?? i5-2500k eats X6 in every game out there. Unless you need 6 cores for video/photo editing, I say go with an 2500k.

Again - for what would a gamer need 6 cores exactly??

X6 is more than powerful enough for any game out there yet much cheaper!!

Still, on the many tests produced by various magazines and online it is clear that currently Sandy Bridge produces results that challenge (and often beat) much more expensive core i7 processors running (more expensive) triple-channel memory.

For me the aim is to get 'powerful enough' equipment for a reasonable price - not gain bragging rights about having the best spec system.


Unfortunately, in my own case, I want to upgrade for the imminent release of COD. There is ALWAYS more advanced and faster computer technology just around the corner. Sooner or later you have to 'jump'.

This is really one of those questions that can at best be answered by a bunch of other questions. It's like asking the following question:

What is the best vehicle to buy?
a. A subcompact.
b. A sportscar.
c. A truck.
d. A helicopter.

Budget, speed, functionality, and reliability come into play. Both with vehicles and computers. What are these attributes worth to you? How would you rank their importance?

It's easy to tell someone else what your values are, but then they could get stuck with something that doesn't fit with what is important to them.

Not all games use hardware the same way. Some games are very GPU-dependant, and some are very CPU-dependant. If there is a core set of games you play, you may want to prioritize what they focus on.

My advice is to sit down & think about what you will do with the machine right away, and what you would plan on doing with it in the future. Then do research, research, and more research. Don't take the word of fanboys at face value. Look at benchmarks (especially of games you play), read reviews, and make the best imformed choice you can.

Yeah at the end of the day frame for frame you get the same results with the cheaper chipset.

The trouble with a X58 setup is its setup price compared to what you can get with a P55/P67 setup. You'd be hard pressed to max out the PCIe lanes with even Crossfire / SLI using a single monitor using P55/P67.

Unless you're running triple graphics cards with triple screens at an insane resolution the X58 option is just expensive overkill, and becoming more out of date as time goes by.

There is no info yet telling us which platform, or hardware details, will be the most beneficial to IL2:CLoDO. We can only speculate.

We don't know how many cores, or threads (Hyperthreading), that will be supported. Don't go buying a 6 or 8 core CPU and think you will make the most of it in IL2.
In terms of memory there is indication that the game hasen't used more than 2GB RAM during testing (Ilya) and that more VRAM is better as there will be alot of objects in high detail for the GPU to deal with when flying low over populated areas (again Ilya).
DX11 is not in release, so don't expect it until at least for the first game patch..

In the early days most of this will have to be found out.. We can only hope that some review sites with a good mix of hardware might do a benchmark-run on IL2:CLoDO. Possibly SimHQ might provide us a decent review with hardware concidered in the early days.. ? I think for the most part we will have to exchange with eachother how the game runs on different hardware.

If you are buying a new rig only for IL2 then I suggest to hold your horses a little longer.. There are new hardware coming out all the time; some interesting new SSD's are in the pipe, AMD Bulldozer as well, new custom models of grafix cards. Prices tend to go down ever so slightly on todays and yesterdays hardware.. If you wait a month or two the hardware landscape could be very different to what it is today. And we will know alot more how IL2 will perform on different hardware..
If you are overloaded with cash and don't mind spending fortunes on new hardware then go ahead, you can always adjust to new requirements in a heartbeat ;)

Good advice!

One of the most annoying issues with hardware reviewers is that they rarely include a flight sim let alone ours in theirs tests.

ALL these cpu's have similar gaming performance;
Phenom X6 series cost $180-240
i5 750 $280
i5 2500S $230
i5 2400S $200
i7 875,870,860 $290
phenom II X4 955 $140
phenom II X4 965 $160

Why would you want to spend $100 more for a cpu when you gain nothing??
You could almost build a whole system around an phenom II X4 955 for just the price of an i7 875!! AND have almost identical gaming performance.

Most games are gpu depended, with lower resolutions (see below) you see big differences though. (flight)sims are really happy with a fast cpu, but you almost dont see reviews on that. So you would probaly see bigger differences with flight sims then for the examples below.

I saw a very big difference with rise of flight switching from a 8400 to a i7 860, using the same graphics card.

So the best bet you could do even when paying some more is the new sandy bridge processors (when playing simulation games) IMO.

It would for me; to feel if you are on the safe side, not regretting later on, you took a cheaper cpu, and after some time feeling bad you didnt took that faster cpu in this example the current AMD instead of the new sandy i5 or i7.

Test below used an ATI 5870 card. Oh and when buying a new graphics card be sure to get a 2 gig version..

http://nl.hardware.info/productinfo/...,0000FF,0000FF

http://nl.hardware.info/productinfo/...,0000FF,0000FF

Bingo ... a good test is to run a DCG campaign with the object density set to Heavy, then you'll see why a powerful CPU is better.

Assuming you decide INTEL the other issue to be considered is whether you want to invest money in a deprecated/outdated chipset.

The current Sandy Bridge 1155 chipsets replace the older 1156 i3/i5/i7 motherboard. It comes in two breeds:

a) The Sandy bridge P67 which allows overclocking of K series processors but needs a separate graphics card.
b) The Sandy Bridge H67 which does not overclock (even with a K) but enables on-board built in Intel graphics.

These two chipsets supersede the 1156 chipsets currently used by CPU's like the i5-750. The 1156 chipset will start to disappear.

Note that both the new Sandy Bridge 1155 chipset and the older 1156 chipsets used dual channel ram (not triple) and have a limited number of PCIe lanes - meaning that three or more graphic cards in SLI at once may bottleneck. ( Note most review sites are saying triple channel ram does not give a noticeable performance improvement in real life and the 1155/1156 chipsets appear fine with single or dual graphic cards. )




What does this mean ?

a) The 1156 is superseded and should only be a consideration if you can get a bargain basement price.

b) The 1366 chipset will also eventually be superseded with a Sandy Bridge version - but not till much later this year later this year. If you currently want triple channel ram, or three or more graphics cards, then you are stuck with the older 1366 chipset for a while longer.

As I said
ALL these cpu's have similar gaming performance;
Phenom X6 series cost $180-240
i5 750 $280
i5 2500S $230
i5 2400S $200
i7 875,870,860 $290
phenom II X4 955 $140
phenom II X4 965 $160

Why would you want to spend $100 more for a cpu when you gain nothing??
You could almost build a whole system around an phenom II X4 955 for just the price of an i7 875!! AND have almost identical gaming performance.

Whats the refresh rate on your monitor 60hz?? Then you cant display over 60 fps anyway. Playable frame rates are anything over 30. Do you need 200 fps or can you live with 60 (which is all you'll get with normal monitor).

1) I deliberately avoided the AMD versus Intel debate in the last post but if you MUST bring it up the Phenom X6 is based on a soon to be superseded chipset/socket and CPU with limited future upgrade possibilities. If you must do AMD then wait for Bulldozer which is due out shortly.

2) Most readers on this forum are thinking in terms of flight sims where the variation between processors is much greater than other games (which are generally GPU locked so processor makes minimal difference). Game review sites tend to mainly use first person shooter games for testing and in those games CPU does not matter. Even when they do test flightsims they rarely do the CPU intensive stuff like massed bombers that the typical simmer will regularly do.

3) Most people looking at SB processors are thinking of the K series which will overclock up around 5.0 Ghz with air cooling and way past that (6.0 Ghz and more) with a water block. Even running NO2 you would be pushing to overclock a current AMD to match SB 2500k/2600K overclocked performance.

4) Whilst wasting money is silly --- a difference of $100 is minimal compared to the cost of most other hobbies. In reality $100 buys me less than an hour of real time flying, a small fraction of the annual cost of owning a motorcycle and a similar small fraction of the coast of joining the local golf club.

I can see your point on gaming on 60fps, but if you do other things such as 3D work, Video editing or even programming / data base operations, Intel still has the upper hand $ for $. Comparing the AMD X6 1100T with i7 2600 (locked), they're roughly the same price ($AUS $295 and $319), the Intel is way ahead in all benchmarks and better at power consumption.

Having said that, I'm really hoping AMD will give Intel a run for their money with Bulldozer.

Your only partially correct. These cpu comparisons are based on average all around scores on multiple games and cpu intensive benchmarks so your claim of intel being so superior arent valid in this instance.

What is your monitior refresh rate?? 60hz?? Your max fps is never going to realistically break 60 fps so saying you need a cpu to get you 200fps over 150 fps is kind of pointless.

It's all about the minimum fps. With a better pc the minimum fps are better.

I dont know were your getting your cpu's but the amd 1100T is only 240 on newegg while the i7 2600K is 330. For that much difference I can get a mobo, 100T and ram for the price of the i7. And it would play CoD just fine. And I save $100

That say absolutely nothing how it will perform in IL2:CLoDO.. You are just guessing like the rest of us which CPU will be best.

im not saying what is best im saying what will work. Once you get your minimum fps above 30-40 fps everything else is wasted in a sence. I know there are intel cpus better but they are totally unneccesary. These cpus will almost certainly give more then adequate gameplay for a fraction of the price.

Intel

Do you own a ferrari or lamborgini??

Adequate for now - what about building in some future-proofing?

What happens when dynamic weather and other new features get added?

Dont you mean IF dynamic weather is added. I dont think there are any guarantees that it will ever be active.

I compared the 2600 not the 2600k. The 'K' is the unlocked version and more expensive. But what I was highlighting was the power of two CPUs at roughly the same price.

Your not wrong in what your saying about using the AMD's, in fact if all you want is a gaming rig them I would say go for AMD.

But remember that almost all CPU benchmarks are formulated around First Person Shooters who's game engines are heavily focused on eye candy which is almost entirely taken care of by the GPU. That's they show a $100 CPU performs almost on par as a $1000 CPU. But a flight sim needs to do many more calculations for things that aren't directly displayed on the screen, e.g. Weather modelling, Flight modelling, Damage modelling etc. Yes some First Person do this as well, but not to the level of details as what IL-2 or IL-S:CoD do. And don't forget about the other stuff that is usually associated with a flight sim - Hyper Lobby, TrackIR, Joystick mapping software etc. Using a flight sim for a benchmark will stress a CPU more and this is where Intel will generally do better than a similar priced AMD chip.

Yes I agree, but the cpu's I was comparing were all basicall within 5-10% in performance of each other in CPU and gaming benchmarks not just GPU. And yes intel (spawn of satan) has the best cpu performance when cost isnt an object.

But for most on a budget the AMD phenom II systems will give more fps per dollar than intel. And most high end phenom II X4 will be more than fast enough for this and any game presently. So why pay more for something thats overkill. Do you need a ferrari to drive to work??

That would be rather nice actually.

hehehe ... no. I'm actually building my own Lamborghini Concept kit car ...

http://www.lambocars.com/lambonews/f...i_concept.html

Planning to start building next year when the garage is finished, have obatined permission from the man himself to use his design and have ordered the 6.0ltr LS3 that I'll be using :)

All thats left is to hire an engineer to oversee the build. I can't wait to start!

I thought we had a guarantee that dynamic weather is already included in the FMB as an undocumented feature, to be used at your own risk, and better optimization will come in later patches.

Don't try and future proof! That last few FPS is going to cost you 100X more than they are worth!

Buy the PC components with the most FPS at the best price right now and don't throw away your money. What runs "bleeding edge" right now will be left in the dust by whatever comes out in 2 years. It doesn't matter if you drop $3000 on your system I will be able to spend $800 in two years and probably get 2x the FPS yours does.

YOU CANNOT FUTURE PROOF!!!

If I went for the top of the line stuff available 2 years ago and spent $3000 I could go out now and trounce that system for less than a third of the money. Under $1000 would do the trick and make that system look pathetic.

If I instead bought a $1000 system I'd probably only have a few FPS less than that $3000 system, and would have $2000 in the bank. Now I want to upgrade for COD and that $3000 system is not going to cut it and I'll have to buy a new one. So I've essentially spent $1000 a year for a computer, that I now have to replace and spend more money on. If I instead got a $1000 system three years ago ($333.33 a year) I have more money to buy a system that will run COD maxed and still have money left in the bank.

I'm not trying to be a jerk or call you stupid, but don't try and Future Proof, it can't be done and it's wasting your money.

Wise words. There is always a sweet spot where you get the most bangs for your bucks, and if you regularly purchase within it, you will save lots of money in the long run and get pretty good performance at all times - as opposed to brief periods of great performance with the same pretty good performance all the rest of the time, but the whole exercise instead costing exponentially more.

+1

The latest Intel CPU are using socket 1155 and they're talking about releasing socket 2011 second half of this year. From the way Intel has been releasing sockets for their CPUs I wouldn't be expecting a long life for the newly released sockets.

In the past you could have remarked that AMD have been relatively stable with their Sockets. That will change with the introduction of bulldozer later in the year (edit: looks like they requires AM3+ motherboard for full functionality).

So if your building for longevity, your sort of stuck between a rock and someplace nasty at the moment.

As stated before, Hardware will get cheeper and faster the longer you can wait. Get what you need when you need it.

I've been looking at the differences between IL-2 (very CPU intensive) and some of the newer sims (ROF&A10 - very graphics intensive) and have come to the conclusion that I personally will be waiting for Bob's (Ooops!!! CoDs! sorry!) release and seeing how it works before deciding on any hardware upgrades.
cheers!

As we are talking about a new game which will be released (we are after all not in the forum thread of past FPS games..) you could be looking at eating up your above statement with salt and pepper in a few months time.

Trust me, I hope I don't have to pay a fortune on new hardware to enjoy this new game once it's released. I don't care for brand or make when spending my hard earned cache. I wan't to put my money where it gives me the best return.
Are you prepared to reimburse my expense if I go and buy a new PC based on your recommendations, and it turns out I'd be better off getting other gear in hindsight?
(No, I don't expect you to.. I'm just taking this to extremes) ;)
My point is that one should not claim facts when the truth is not even out there yet!

And that's my gripe, there are so many here advocating they know whats best to get NOW.. when they actually know NOTHING of what will be required to run the game smoothly once it's installed on our PC's in a few months time.

The best we have right now are some vague system requirements, minimum and recommended.. And I am sure they are very conservative and politically correct.

Generally speaking, I agree with you, but I'm not planning to go for the top of the range i-7 Extreme version or anything like that. Sandy Bridge I think is the current sweet spot. It gives better performance than the Phenom and is within my budget, so...

Exactly!

As for the people who spent $2000 on systems in August and September so they could play SOW in October. . . . not a tear will be shed!

+1