990fxa-ud7 with FX 8120 or Z77X-UP7 with Core i5? - Page 2

I have both, the 3570K and the FX8350. Unless I am doing benches I do not see a difference between the two. Yes, the 3570 is going to consume less power, but unless you are running it 24/7 it won't matter. Both are hot chips, my 3570 is even delidded and it's a PITA keeping cool with water. Personally, figure out what you want to do and if gaming is the main thing then I would lean toward the Intel, although I have not noticed a difference between the two in the games I play. From a price point, the AMD board is $165 after rebate and the chip is $180, so $345. The Intel board is $400 and the chip is $220, so $620, almost twice as much, but not even remotely close to twice the performance, even in gaming. That being said you could get a cheaper Intel board, but if you need the PCIe slots like I do, that means you are going to spend around $300 for a board with the exception of the EVGA which has poor BIOS support, so I would stay away from them for now. The 990FXA-UD7 has 6 PCIe slots, so plenty of expansion. For me I combined my gaming and server needs into one machine and decided to go AMD after being on Intel for the last 5+ years and I am not regretting it. Again, if all you do is bench, then you will see a difference, but everyday use you would be hard pressed. By the way, my 3570 was running 5Ghz 24/7 and my FX8350 runs at 4.9Ghz 24/7, so it's a pretty good comparison. One last thing, if you do the 990FXA-UD7, make sure you get at least Rev 1.1 which added LLC and allows for overclocking beyond 4Ghz.