You picked the most expensive i7. Not only that, but the "budgetary price" is an MSRP. Retailers are not obligated to maintain that.

I picked the cheapest hexacore.....

no, you didn't. you said slightly. there is no slight here. there is a definitive and noticeable difference between overclocking potential of i5/i7s and current-gen AMD cpus. they are certainly and clearly outperformed in this regard.



lmao. there is the POTENTIAL that the MOTHERBOARDS may have SATA 2(you should be using 3) ports degrade over the next 2-3 years. spew more sensationalist garbage. protip: the term sandy bridge does not apply to every i5/i7 processor. though I definitely recommend buying one as opposed to anything else if you can afford it due to the great performance increase from everything else available for only $300.



this reveals you have no idea what you're talking about, as a clock means little when taking architecture into consideration and multiple benchmarks are the ONLY real way to flatly compare the ability of a processor. kindly don't post again about a cpu in this fashion.



completely irrelevant



no reason not to in this day and age, the process is so ridiculously simple that a child could handle it without damaging anything. 1. research overclock on specific cpu via google. 2. increment clock by small amounts as recommended. 3. stress test using prime9/similar for 24 hours when not using it. 4. no issues? go to step 2. issues? revert back to last clock, test again.

and he never said he wouldn't overclock.



now you don't even make sense

several i5s surpass the 1055t. you posted the 1100t. same goes for that as well. what are you TALKING about??




did I mention who cares? the issue was with your statements on CPUs. everything else you posted was OK/mediocre. good enough. not maximum price-performance but that isn't all important.



OK this is just a gross disregard for everything. here, look at this CHART, do you have ANY clue what you're saying?


that 750 has easily comparable/better specifications and is $200!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

to make it even better - overclock speeds.


and here's MEDIA ENCODING, taking FULL ADVANTAGE of the hexacore's six cores which cause it to win at stock clocks.

and both the processor and memory you listed are not overkill for gaming.


and an i5 will serve you much better, if you're willing to actually use what you've got.

I already decided to get an i5, but thanks for the research, both of you.

This is probably going to be delayed at least until Intel gets Sandy Bridge out again, and probably until early summer, since I'm running really short on time for gaming these days. I guess there's not much point in making a build now considering that everything is going to change in a few months, so I guess there's nothing to do right now. We'll see if I can get a job for next semester.