X-Mas 2011: What did you get/are you playing?

[LP]

to code_glitch: again, thank you for such detailed explanation!

So it seems that AMD FX CPUs vs Intel are in a way similar to AMD GPUs vs Nvidia, where AMD usually have much more processor units but with more limited capabilities. I also can't help but notice that there are many more models of CPUs both for AMD and Intel these days, which makes selection much more complicated.

Btw, do you keep the opinion that a high-end Core i7 has the highest performance? For usage patterns, sometimes I use main desktop for gaming, but most of the time it's used with Delphi IDE, and for executing multi-threaded research apps.

From what I've seen, WEI (windows experience index) usually takes into account the amount of RAM instead of its speed. Also, for some reason on most machines I've tried in Win7 the RAM score corresponds exactly to CPU score. Do AMD chips have hypertransport bus higher or equal to 1600 Mhz? Because for Intel it still seems to be limited to 1333 Mhz even in Core i7 chips. Also, how's the latency in 1600 Mhz RAM for random memory access?

[LP]

I know that this is an old topic, but wanted to comment that I've finally decided to go for Intel and acquired Core i7 2600K. The budget got very restrictive, so I've got Asus P8H61 mobo and cheap RAM (will get better parts later on). The original Intel cooler was too crappy so I've used CoolerMaster Vortex Plus (even though I don't like it due to large gaps between heatsink and heatpipes on the side touching the CPU). Anyway, the performance is roughly 3 times of my Q6600 and 2 times of my mobile i7 840QM.

However, even though Core i7 2600K has lower thermal profile of 95W when compared to Q6600 having 105W, it runs significantly hotter in stress tests.