NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

What the [censored] is wrong with you people?

An ATI card runs just as well with an Intel as with an AMD. An Nvidia card runs just as well with an AMD as with an Intel.

Are you people all sitting in a room together coming up with wrong information to feed to people? Is it to mess with them, or to piss me off? WHY?!

Indeed. I've mismatched vendors and never had any problems like others are alluding to. I have an I7 (Intel) with 2 AMD cards in Crossfire and this rig screams.

First... Please stop saying AMD/ATI, it's AMD/AMD now. ATI's gone. Second, I find that the Radeon HD6950 is the best cost-efficient (while still powerful) card out there today. Do what I did, grab an i7 2600k, a pair of reference-model HD6950s (unlocked to HD6970 with shader/BIOS mod), then overclock the Processor and Videos. BAM.

Intel's new SB 4-core processors out perform AMD's 6-core in the majority of tests for the same price.(http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/203?vs=288) In that link make sure what they're testing it may be higher is better or lower is better.
edit: also those tests were at stock speeds and SB has been shown to be an incredible overclocker, people easily hitting 5Ghz on air cooling.

The main reason I don't buy Intel: CPUs that cost more than entire computers. $1000 for an i7-980X, versus $200 for a Phenom II X6 1090T. What do you see wrong with this picture?

Way to be incredibly hostile without adding anything to the conversation. They are confusing the CPUs with the motherboard support for crossfire and SLI. From what I remember most motherboards today support crossfire OR SLI, but not both. I may be wrong.

Yep, that's why I said "fu Intel" like four years ago, I'm not paying for their corporate logo. Of course I was only able to do so because at that time AMD introduced their new revolutionary architecture with the memory controller mounted directly to the mother board and Hyper Transport FSB. I never looked back. Above I posted a build I'm making soon and in it is the current AMD flagship processor which only costs 229$.

Intel is way behind in the architecture race too. They came up with QPI to compete with AMD's HT but it's current maximum bandwidth is only 26.5 gigs/s and HyperTransport is capable of 51.2gigs/s utilizing bidirectional aggregation. To top it off QPI is only available with their last two chipsets, x48 and below are stuck with a max 1.6gig Front Side Bottleneck. Intel still uses a memory bus on their motherboards too so more powerful processors and faster memory speeds mean very little when you have not one but two bottle necks built into your motherboard.

Now Nvidia is a whole other animal and although they DO produce the overall more powerful hardware (which requires more power and runs hotter) they have been known to release defective chipsets into the market and then refuse to acknowledge their existence. After getting burned not once but twice, i said "fu too" to Nvidia and again haven't looked back.

Conclusion:

The race between Nvidia and AMD(formerly ATI) is neck and neck so make your choice based on the features you want and power requirements.

AMD vs Intel is no contest. I'll take the smarter, more efficient 75% power at 50% of the price, thank you very much.

Arken, go ahead and try to run SLi on a CrossFire motherboard, let me know how that works out for you.

If you're willing to wait a bit, http://www.guru3d.com/news/amd-fxseries-processors-unleashed-june-11-/...

AM3+ motherboards are coming out soon. If I were you unless you absolutely need a computer now I'd wait at the least for AM3+ motherboards so you aren't stuck with a slot that doesn't work with all the newer AMD CPUs coming out, such as Bulldozer and its later successors.

I'd like that but unfortunately my current rig is on it's last leg and i'm on a fixed budget. I will pass this rig I'm about to build on to my wife in a year or so and build myself a new one. Besides It's never advisable to buy hardware as soon as it's released. Better to wait till after field testing has proven the hardware's worth.

Good advice but AM3+ motherboards will be backwards compatible with AM3 CPUs. So if you need a PC right now you can buy a cheap AM3 mobo and when AM3+ motherboards become available you can get a better AM3+ mobo, just drop in your AM3 cpu and upgrade to a bulldozer later on. I suppose if you have a high end hexa-core you may as well skip the 1st generation of bulldozer and go for the 2nd generation of bulldozer that is expected in 2012.

That's why many of us by the lesser models, and OC the snot out of them! My I7 950, for $290 is running at 4.2GHz from 3.06GHz. My 950 will do all the same things the over priced X series will do. (The unlocked multiplier is what you are paying top dollar for for, as well as a bit of Intels ego markup.)



It's a mixed bag really. Plenty of all varieties. My MSI Xpower does both variations at 16x 16x.

Though, there is always the http://www.slipatch.com/. It seems to work with most Crossfire only boards.



See above link.

No one I responded to said anything about SLI or Crossfire. I responded to claims that you are better off or required to use an AMD card with an AMD chipset and an Nvidia card with an Intel chipset.
If you want to talk about multiple gpus though, as Wolfpup pointed out though, there is the SLI patch.


You haven't seen hostile.
Whether they're confused or just wrong doesn't matter. What they are posting is false. What that leads to is people that want to build their first PC for Skyrim looking in this thread and being greeted with misinformation. That's not cool. The fact that multiple people were saying the same thing is disturbing to me.

OCZ StealthXstream II 700W --- If possible, buy 800W (or higher). You will be needed to upgrade.

GIGABYTE GA-870A-UD3 ------ Beware, if you want to upgrade your system with crossfire in the future (and 2x HD 6850 in crossfire will be a perfect choise later on), this motherboard is not ready to receive propper crossfire (2nd PCI-E x16 only run at x4). About USB 3.0, don't use ON (to a external HD, for example) if you playing a game.

Kingston HyperX 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 ------ If possible, choose 2 x 4GB. Lots of motherboards have problems with all the slots taken, and this problems are related with windows 7 too.

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express x1 (...) ------- If really not necessary for your profession, i sugest don't buy a sound card. All the best's motherboards came on-board with very good sound cards, and you can save some money here.

Dell XPS 9100's 525W PSU is it enough? ----- No, buy 800W or higher.


8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz ------ choose 2 x 4 GB, not 4 x 2 GB.

Motherboard?

BTW, you need the PC now? If not, wait until summer.

Who said anything about consoles? Not me.

I think they were implying if a console can do it with such limited RAM a PC GPU with under 1GB VRAM will suffice.

I prefer 1GB myself for higher resolution texture mods and the like at 1920x1200. Though if your not a graphics snob like myself less would suffice, though I'd still recommend 1GB at this stage of the game. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. :shrug:

Indeed. I know my PC can dominate any game that comes out on 360 or PS3, probably be able to support next gen games for a while too but who knows. If you actually look at the specs on a 360 or PS3 its kind of weak. The only problem is really good graphics cards cost about as much as a new 360 lol.

So why does Intel charge over $500 to unlock the multiplier?

Being a system builder myself, I'd swap that 8 gigs of dual ch. RAM for 6 gigs of triple channel - it's a tad cheaper, plus the new corsair vengeance modules overclock very well.

As for the power supply, go with a 700 watt - in case you decide to SLI/Crossfire - it's always safer to be on the higher end then be [censored] your PSU.

And I tend to stick with Nvidia - mainly because EVGA makes the best cards out there with their step up programs, b-stock sales and epic warranties.

Not so anymore - check this out:


http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500157&cm_re=zotac-_-14-500-157-_-Product

Hmm. always had driver issues with my ati 4670, otherwise a good card. I'l be upgrading for Skyrim, TW2, Deus Ex, etc. so I have to decide pretty soon here. I don't want to drop more than $200 on a card, cause I have to get a new power source as well. My tech friends say Nvidia cards have greater compatabiklity while AMD tend to have more horse power for the price.

I initially misread this thread's topic as "Numidia or AMD?".

So you feel that, in order to run skyrim on a PC, you will need twice the total amount of RAM on either console on your graphics card alone? Your card will need to support DX11, a technology it seems unlikely will be used in skyrim at all? You'll have to use /two GPUs/? You'll need a HDMI port, even though both DVI and VGA are capable of driving high resolution monitors?

No, you didn't mention consoles. You also didn't mention anything that even made sense.