Maximum PC

You did an excellent job with your chart and I commend your hard work in gathering all that data. And I agree with you for the most part, AMD clearly needs to step up their game. The development of the Sandy Bridge chips has widened the gap so immensely between AMD and Intel that it'll take a rocketship for AMD to cross this gorge and stay competitive. Hopefully Bulldozer will help alleviate this a little, but some of the preliminary data I am seeing is not too reassuring (I know we don't have a solid BD exclusive bios yet, and hopefully that will help some). And I don't think Intel is shaking in their boots about the Llano chips hurting their business either.

I just felt obligated to make a comment here about your chart and about the Phenom II x6 chips in general. I realize that you labeled your chart "Gaming CPU Hierarchy Chart" for a reason, and I get that. However, a lot of uninformed folks will look at this chart and believe that the Phenom II x6 1090T/1100T chips are underpowered, and inferior to the Phenom II x4 975/980, and will pass on them. This is not the case. In regard to gaming only, for the most part yes this is accurate. But not for overall CPU performance. Gaming is only a small part of what your computer does. It's amazing to me (since I have a rig with the 1090T) of all the negative comments I get about my CPU. I like to game, I really do, and the 1090T does it superbly, but there are 100 other tasks that I do everyday that have nothing to do with gaming on my computer. And the 1090T is stellar at them. It is in fact a thoroughbred, not a paint horse.

You have the listed the Phenom II x4 975/980 in the top AMD category, and to the uninitiated it would appear to be a whole level above (and hence "better" than) the 1090T/1100T. Although these x4 chips do score higher in most gaming benchmarks than the 1090T, they can't keep up with it when the applications start to get heavy. I just hope folks are clear on this.

My point is that I want people to understand that the 1100T is the highest rated CPU that AMD makes followed closely by the 1090T. The Phenom II x6 1100T received an average CPU mark score from Passmark of 6292 (higher is better), and is ranked #49 overall. The 1090T received a CPU mark average of 6052 with a ranking of #57. That's pretty dang good. The Phenom II x4 980's average mark score however is 4861, and it is ranked quite a ways down the list at #93. The 975's average CPU mark score is 4581, and it is ranked at #106. In fact, even several of the Intel i7 chips on the other side of your chart listed above the 1090T (for gaming), are actually rated below it performance-wise (the i7 860, 920, 930, and 750).

Please don't misunderstand me guys, I recommend getting the Phenom II x4 980 (or actually the 965 B.E.) if you only want to game, and you don't want to go with Intel (which I'm not sure why you would not want to at this point strictly from a gaming perspective). It's just that whenever I start talking computers with my friends and the conversation shifts to gaming, they start slamming my 1090T six-core, telling me how worthless it is for gaming. And how those six-cores will never really be used, at least for 5 years or more, and how they would never put it in a new build. Well, I'm only running a lowly Radeon HD 5770 right now and I can play Crysis 2 on "extreme" settings and still get a silky smooth 35-40 FPS, so that doesn't qualify as weak to me. Can the 965 B.E. beat that on the same set-up. Oh yeah it can, but that's ok. I can play any game out right now. No problems. And the 1090T and 1100T are made to be overclocked.

And since the mighty Intel now has several well-established six-core babies (i7 970, 980, 980x, 990x) I'm betting that developers are chomping at the bit to find applications that uses all these six-cores, other than just high level video editing and encoding. And I'm betting the AMD six-core chips will benefit from a spillover of this development. That's the way it's always been. I wouldn't be surprised to see some good six-core usage applications by 2012.

Ok I'll get off my soapbox now, and yes I love AMD. And I am really glad I went with the 1090T. I use my computer for many different things everyday (as do most people), and if I only wanted a gaming system, I would have just bought a PS3.

If you want an excellent and super fast CPU for your new build - do your research, but don't quickly dismiss the mighty 1090T/1100T chips if you're an AMD fan. And it does games too.

The chart...sucks.

While I do see credence with an i3-2100, the Phenom II x4 Black 980 compares to it?

How? What does an i3 2105 w/ HD300 vs Llana do to this very basic chart? Is it on graphics or is it on being a CPU? Poor AMD is making nice discrete and onboard graphics, so is that factored in or is this only CPU bound ideals?

Just saying...they both have there own use in any given build and this chart is firm. Firm on what? I'm not sure and is too firm on computational ability. For a WHS, I'd do a G620. For an iTX sleeper build, I'd do a Llana and use no video card. For a $500 desktop, I'm back to Llana. For most users in general, a Llana will do. AMD, to me, wins 9:10 of any actual usage charts/graphs. Poor AMD? They have a winner. If we're talking about a graphical artist, gamer, CAD guy, or just the normal user...we have variables which this thing doesn't account for.

The tech world is changing, and we're the leaders of them all. WE can tell them to spend $300 for a CPU and $250 for a board...or build them a system that they actually need for $700 total. Charts like these are jaded and are skewed in the maximum direction.

It's your hardware statement, and I'm ready to debate. Most people don't need new stuff.

nice to see my i7-970 up there at the bottom of the top area. but i also wonder - the 6-core Intel i have, i also have an AMD x4 black edition 970 4 core, and windows 7 gives both cpus the same score of 7.7. does that warrant the need to put it at the top? the 970 i have is coupled with 12GB of RAM, while the 970 x4 has 16GB, and both perform about the same (good/well) as far as i can tell.