New PC Advice - Not sure where to start.

[FR4NOx]

(2012-08-12 02:40)Tommer Wrote:  If you're gaming/multitasking you won't need an i7 that's overkill, even an i3 will be smooth flying.

Well, my current i5 is like a slow i3 with Turboboost. When it's doing the usual stuff I can make it clock around 2.8 to 2.9GHz (never 3.0, sadly) so I doubt an i3 would pack the power I need for multitasking.

(2012-08-12 02:49)Zipppy Wrote:  I'm in a similar situation, and I bought an Asus sabertooth 990FX motherboard, it's pretty solid.
and I believe AMD will release Piledriver in the fall, and it is claimed to be 20% faster than Bulldozer. Anything is faster than my current triple core however. AMD won't reach Intel, but it's good enough.

From what I've read over the web, is as follows;
If you compare ATI vs NVIDIA on GPUs, you'll find ATI's cards are cheaper and are quicker, but have sub-standard quality on drivers, which bog them down. NVIDIA however, has a bit less performance but has well-optimized drivers, and they cost more, with more power consumption than ATI's, except for the GTX680.

Yes, I've heard about Piledriver. I can probably wait until then, I just hope that AMD doesn't overhype them like they did with the Bulldozer.

ATi is usually packing a similar $/performance ratio to AMD's processors, but lack the software integrity. Another reason why I'd rather go with NVIDIA is because I play more NVIDIA optimized games, like GTA IV and I've read online that Minecraft seems to run best with an NVIDIA card. I got 160fps on it during the beta with my GT 240. I would only go with AMD Radeon if it were a better value.