Switching from AMD to Intel...?

Question

Hi. Well basically I was thinking about switching from an AMD system to an Intel system and am a bit concerned as to how much work this will require if any. Before I go on, let me just list my system specs as they are now:

-ASUS M3A78-T Motherboard
-AMD Phenom II x4 940
-ATI Radeon 4870x2
-4GB of DDR2 Dominator RAM

I was thinking about switching to:

-GIGABYTE P55 ATX Motherboard
-Intel Core i7 860
-Same graphics card
-4GB of DDR3 G.SKILL Ripjaw RAM

I am keeping the same hard drive which leads me to think that this switch might mess up my computer seeing as how the BIOS currently on the hard drive are for the ASUS for example, and perhaps other factors involving the software on my hard drive might prevent me from making this switch possible. So basically I just want to know if doing this switch will cause such problems, or will it be simple. Secondly (kind of off subject), do you think this would be a worthy upgrade? I know that this particular GIGABYTE motherboard will allow me to use better memory (DDR3 instead of DDR2), but what about the CPU? Do you think going with the Intel Core i7 860 would be a wiser choice than going for a Phenom II x4 965 Black Edition for example? I know this is a loaded question, but I can't seem to find an answer surfing the web, and help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Answer 1

The motherboard BIOS is stored on the mobo itself...But you may have to reinstall the OS.

Also you'd have to buy triple channel ram because most i7s don't run dual, don't know about the 860 in particular. So this means you should use 3/6 sticks.

And Intel is currently much better than AMD, The x4 only beats out the lowest of i7s I believe, but honestly most people don't need all the power Intel offers for the ridiculous prices, I myself have a Phenom. You should wait for AMDs hexacore and see if the competition

will lower Intels monstrous price hikes.

Answer 2

BIOS IS stored on the motherboard ur installation of windows will have to be redone however as drivers will be different for audio codecs etc also DDR3 RAM is useless unless it is tri channel as DDR3 dual channel provides no noticeable effect over DDR2 dual channel.

Also intel has dominated the market from their release of Core2Duo series for the simple fact that their CPU's run more stable at higher clock speeds, which lets overclockers go nuts :P

Answer 3

unless you love building new computers and have tons of money to burn, this doesn't represent enough of a jump to justify the cash. you have a very decent system that will probably run every game you throw at it and then some, not to mention some very awesome rendering capabilities. the core i7 is indeed awesome, but probably only about a 1.5x difference, maybe 2x, and only on very specialized, properly threaded tests. if you are using this for gaming, treat yourself and maybe get an ssd for faster boot and loading, but really, a quad core versus a hyper threaded quad core on crysis is not a massive difference. i have seen memory tests and ddr3 is not that big a deal.

Answer 4

Your bios isn't stored on your hard drivebut the motherboard itself. Switching over like that will require you to reformat your hard drive and reinstall your operating system. The Intel i5 and I7's are great processors, but the argument between the top AMD's and top Intels is going to leave you with people arguing for both sides.

Answer 5

i dont know the specifics of these diffrent units as far as how they perfrom. but i do know the nature of each chipset. the amd has a history of being faster and the intel has a history of being able to handle a larger work load. as for you choices of setting up i would consider switching to an nvidia gpu. ati is wonderful but nvidia shars teh same multi flop proscessing core diod technology that the inten chip dose. thare for with the right software. you can use your nvidia gpu as another cpu core. you can share application proscesses between the gpu and cpu. wich allows less strain on both chips wich allows for a higher level of performance. nividia with an intel chip set thares alredy a level of this alredy withing the nvidia intel drivers. you can thank apple for that. amd makes ati so obviously the ati cards are going to work better in an amd system. just like nvidia and intel the amd/ati gpu is a very similar chip to the amd gpu. but nvidia in a partnership with apple computers has teken this technology to the next level. so if you have an intel chipset i would urge you to go with an nvidia gpu for the ability to have this extra layer of perfomance with sharing applications and grphcs proscesses between the cpu and gpu. this works amazing in an sli set up with multiple cards. if you mother board has an intergrated gpu that is also nvidia you can doanload software form nvidia and run you add on gaming gpu with the intergrated one as a hybrid sli bridge. an an amd mother board you cant do this. at most the intergrated gpu become the north bridge for the shared memory that about it and even that is rare. on an intel board with an intergrated nvidia gpu when you add another pci gpu to the system the itergrated card automaticly becomes a second shared port for the boards northbridge. and alot of raid chips and firmware that are on intel boards that have sata raid built in are also nvidia chips. so an intel based chipset with an nvidia gpu with the right software will give you the highest level of performance you can have. by using every chip in the cystem to perform every task. no more dedicating one for graphics only and another for northbridge bus only and one for cpu proccesses only. with the right set up they all become shared and the performance goes through the roof. so i would urge you to consider nvidia on an intel chip set because of this new technology. as far as difficulty on changing the internals over thats not hard relly. just dont rush it and dont force anything. and it will work fine.