I`ve got £1700 to spend on a new pc, mainly to be used for gaming,

can`t decide between:

Athlon FX-55 (939-pin)
ASUS A8N-SLI Mo`Board
2x GeForce 6600 GT - SLI Mode

or

Intel P4 3.6Ghz Prescott
ASUS P5GDC PCI E  Mo`Board,
128mb GeForce 6600GT PCI-E

I know the AMD is the better specs, but i`ve always been an Intel fan up to
know,
can anyone lay my fears over AMD FX-55?
These rigs are bought as sysyems, and are not really that configurable
on-line (options given)
though i know i can do that myself in the future.

Will the P4 Rig be just as good a gaming rig as the Athlon FX-55? -- I mean
ingnoring the graphics cards
i`ve listed here?

Anyone using an SLI- Set-up?

i`m also worried about too much noise on the AMD  what with 2 Graphics
cards.

thanks for your help.

Show quote Hide quote I dont know about the FX-55 but I havent seen any problems with the
AMDs in general. You rarely seen any problems with processors.  The
only talk Ive heard is the hype about how hot Prescotts ran when they
came out. I also had the impression the FX 55 wasnt a very good deal
price wise since the other 939s could overclock easily and were
getting cheaper and cheaper but I havent priced the FX recently so who
knows. The other thing is the venice & san diego cores are coming out
so people are waiting for that instead , for the 939s. 

The problems you may have are with motherboards - stuff not working
quite right with various motherboards , video cards , memory etc.

The only possible quibble I would see is the last test I saw and there
may be others that show different , but the SLI 6600 setup there was
about equal to a 6800 GT. In fact a bit less. So Id rather just get
one 6800GT with the SLI board and then you could get another 6800
later if you wanted maximum performance.  Even thats an iffy
proposition cause the new graphics chips , if nvidia and ati - dont
drag their feet again forever --- are supposed to be released fairly
soon.  So you might want to get the next generation of video card
anyway at least by Xmas.

Also I was under the impression from some posts that SLI didnt work
with all games but I could be mistaken.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041123/

Toms Hardware:

When buying an SLI system you should note that not all games work with
this mode. Without the right SLI profile in the driver the game runs
only on one card with SLI activated, and sometimes even more slowly
than when SLI is deactivated. The game's age and level of 3D
technology also play a large role.

For gaming,go with the Athlon,it's performance outdoes anything Intel
has,even the new dualcores.In fact,even the cheaper 3500+ Athlon does better
than most P4's,except the way overpriced Extreme Editions.And the heat
factor is a concern,the Prescott runs very hot.As for the noise level,fans
on graphics cards aren't that big and make little noise.But two 6600 GT's
hardly equal 1 6800 GT,and you could upgrade to second one in the
future.Right now,the 6800 can handle any game ouit there easily.
Show quoteHide quote

the FX system is a must!!

the multipliers are unlocked, its the fastest cpu out there, when it comes
to gaming, with water cooling you could o'c it by about 20%(around 2.9ghz)
news:eTq5e.2267$H_5.1562@trnddc01...
Show quoteHide quote

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