[Carbon]

The bus speed isn't what matters, I think Razer meant the clock speed.

[GreatEmerald]

The clock speed is exactly the same, both 2.8 GHz. I can also see that X4 925 has 2MB L2 cache, while X3 720 has 1.5MB... Yet it's 1.8 GHz vs 2.0 GHz HyperTransport bus speeds (so I guess it does matter to some extent). So it's 1 more core + 0.5MB L2 cache vs 0.2GHz bus speed.
From the benchmarks I'd say X4 925 wins even on non-multithreaded applications (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardwar...61_3801711__10 - I'm mainly interested in UT3 results since I'm working on Unreal Engine games). There are places where 720 wins , like the PCMark Vantage test, but overall it's quite rare. And note that 925 is an AM3, not AM2+ like 920 and 940, so its performance should be even better.

[GreatEmerald]

I have no idea where my post went, so if this is a double post, sorry...
Anyway, benchmarks (for example, at Sharky Extreme, or pretty much anywhere else) show that at games, X4 is a little better even if it has a lower bus speed. The only place where X4 is worse than X3 is on PCMark Vantage Productivity, where bus speed does count.
I have to say that there aren't many benchmarks for 925, so it's hard to tell exactly, but since 925 is the same 920 with AM3 support, it should have around 15% performance increase and thus is somewhere between 920 and 940. So since 940 is clearly better than 720 and 920 is very similar, I guess I'll take X4.

[Carbon]

The difference should be minimal - 1-5% accounting for the few games that utilize quad-cores. Regardless, if the X4 is the same price you might as well pick it up. It's just that given the fact that games do not use quad-cores, X3s are usually cheaper, and often tri or dual-core machines have higher clock speeds, those processors are easier to recommend.

[GreatEmerald]

OK, I chose X4. You're right, the difference is very small, that's why it's hard to tell which is better.

I wonder about the PSU configuration... Does it matter if a PSU has one 12V rail, or three separate ones?

Also, one more mistake in the first post - all of the AMD CPUs in the recommended builds section are marked as Athlon, while it's actually Phenom most of the time.

Speaking of which, the Midrange 1920x1080+ build is exactly an AMD Dragon platform :) I'm getting a very similar configuration to that as well. I wonder if I can make myself an AMD Dragon sticker, too :D

[Razer]

Dragon systems are fast, watch the propaganda! Haha. Carbon's guide mentions rails in the PSU section, I think one is good, 2 is alright and more is fire.

Carbon has labelled the Phenom X3 720 and X4 620 as Athlon.. I'm fairly sure these aren't Athlon models but I'll dig into it. The X2 240's are Athlons though and half the AMD builds use them.

EDIT: Correct, Carbon has labelled all the X3 720 as an Athlon and The X4 620 as an Athlon, unless he meant the Athlon II 620.. Have to ask the man himself about that one..

[Carbon]

It's sure propaganda alright. I'm sure AMD loooooooves to try to convince you that there's somehow some speed boost when you use ATI cards or something in their motherboards but it's zilch (and probably would be more than a little legally dubious).

"Rails" don't matter much, since the "good" PSUs tend to have one. Not that that's the part that defines them as good, but the other way around: if it's a one-rail PSU usually it's pretty high quality. Multiple rails really don't mean much anyway - technically, 99% of multi-rail systems are everything running on one rail but split into 2-4 "virtual" rails limited to 18A per the UL spec.

And yep, you're both right, the Athlon applies to the X4 620, all the X2 240 and variants, and (I think!) all processors based on the X3/X4 platform with no L3 cache. So you also have the Athlon X3 435 or whatever in there too, which is the Phenom X3 720 without its L3 cache. Think the X2 5xx series are also Phenoms (hence their 5%-10% speed boost over the X2 2xx), but that's offhand.

[GreatEmerald]

Originally Posted by Carbon

It's sure propaganda alright. I'm sure AMD loooooooves to try to convince you that there's somehow some speed boost when you use ATI cards or something in their motherboards but it's zilch (and probably would be more than a little legally dubious).

Actually, if you were to watch their clips, you'd see that they never really mention speed increase, they put the emphasis on price decrease, which is actually rather true. And probably overclocking abilities, although that doesn't concern me.

[Razer]

When ATi/AMD do overclocking, they have many many custom built chips which are not available under normal circumstances. If they were, you'd see a price hike probably far beyond an Intel system.

There are a few speed ones over low end nVidia cards like the 9500 and such, cards which few people buy.

[Razer]

Sorry for double post.

Any chance of the god like HD5970 appearing in this guide?