New Intel Sandybridge throttling gaming?

[Gilgamesh]

I'm thinking of building a new gaming rig and started wading in to some of Intels new i7 and i5 specs. The new chipsets (H66, P66, H67, and P67) will only provide one x16 lane PCIe 2.0 or two x8 lane PCIe 2.0. Not to mention only the pre-defined processors such as the i7 2600k or the i5 2500k will overclock on a "P" assigned chipset.

On the other hand AMD is looking good for gaming with its quad-crossfire scalability, inexpensive parts, and support for up to three monitors on one card. No 3D vision kinda sucks though and I know Intels mid-range parts will spank AMDs quads.

Not trying to spark the Intel vs. AMD war here but what would you chose out of these four processors and why?

3.4Ghz core i7 2600k
4 cores/8 threads
8MB L3 cache
32nm/95watt
$334


3.3Ghz core i5 2500k
4 cores/4 threads
6MB L3 cache
32nm/95watt
$229


3.4Ghz 965 BE
4 cores/4 threads
6MB L3
45nm/125w
$167

3.2Ghz 955 BE
4 cores/4 threads
6MB L3
45nm/125w
$149





Or should I wait to see what AMDs "Bulldozer" core can do::-)

[LiNuX]

First - I can't wait for the Bulldozer - the name itself sounds awesome.

And I'm actually an AMD fan. They are cheaper and can deliver the power and speed for whatever you need to do. But you're right that Intel's mid range parts will spank AMD's any time of day.

So if you do have the money for the i7, then go for it. I've worked with i7 CPU's before on servers, but unfortunately, have never had the pleasure of building a pc with an i7 cpu from scratch.

One day though...