Well, Fry's is selling them for 140 bucks this weekend. And I came into a $300 windfall.

I always drooled over the concept of having the "best of class" CPU, and AMD's absurd pricing makes it feasible. I was very close to getting a 6400+ when I went with the E6750 I have now.

I figure, if I get a $100 AM2+ mobo (probably an AMD770 chipset, as I don't do Crossfire), I can be out the door for about $250. Comparatively, that buys me a Q9400 or possibly a Q6700-- both of which are not going to be a benefit on single-threaded tasks, and both of which feel "neutered" compared to the Qxx50 parts with 12M cache.

I suppose a bit of the logic is that AM2+/DDR2 will take me to Deneb, while it's clear DDR2 won't take me to Nehalem.

And I could then recoup most of that cost by selling the E6750, Gigabyte P35-DS3L, and spare E7200 which would then be homeless.

But I don't want to leave performance on the table. That's why I swapped back to the 6750 after running the 7200 for a day or two to discover its OC potential (~4000MHz at 1.35v)

So how's the STOCK CLOCKED SINGLE THREADED performance, compared with the E6750? I'd expect it to be close (2.6 vs. 2.66GHz)-- but I tried looking at the charts on Tom's Hardware, and the results were all over the place-- some things the 6750 won surprisingly significantly on, some the 9950 won moderately on, and then the obviously multithreaded thing, the 9950 would win by a factor of two.

Or should I just get a bunch of small things-- maybe a Logitech G5, a copy of Persona 3, a new case, and $150 worth of manga...

Think if you want a quad you'd be better off just getting a Q6600 and clocking the nuts off it. They'll do ~3.5ghz and that will blow the Phenom right out of the water.

Or yeah, just spending it on bits. I'm not sure it's really worth it to be honest...an E6750 is still a great CPU.

It's actually getting frustrating.

It's not that the E6750/P35-DS3L is bad, or doesn't do anything I want it to do-- it's just gotten to the point where I'm bored with it from a "hobbyist PC" standpoint. I know its nuances, I've tidied the case as much as possible around it, I've wound it up as high as it goes (only about 3500 at a conservative voltage, and even then not stable).

I've had it for almost a year, and there's nothing to replace it with that really lights me up-- AT STOCK-- and I don't want to rely on the promise of overclockability.

Intel. AMD. You are leaving my money on the table!

Do it! $140 is crazy for that CPU. Even though you aren't into overclocking that CPU would do 3.3+GHz on Air.

Well, I went to the shop, spent an hour and a half trying to pick out which board to go with (their selection being both awful and further wrecked by not having everything out on display). Of course, there's no convinient internet kiosk, so I'm trying to navigate the appalingly graphic-and-layout-mess-heavy Gigabyte and XFX sites with Opera Mini on a Blackberry.

I finally got them to write me up one and an Asus M3A78-T. $313 in sum. But when I get to the till, the only 9950 they can show me is a trade-back, which looked like someone smeared about a pound of Arctic Silver on the sink, then kicked the whole package, and lost the manual.

So I tell them "Sod this" and head to Newegg. I got the 125W 9950 instead (which is a $45 premium over the loss-leader price on the 140W) and the basic M3A78, total of 275.- delivered. I actually prefer the AMD770 chipset, because I won't use two x16 slots or integrated video, so the 780 and 790 are sort of a waste, and I like having three PCI slots.

However, it is frustrating that there's no "killer" 770 board-- every one is a tradeoff. Some aren't specced for top-wattage CPUs. The one (Gigabyte, natch) with all-solid capacitors has only four SATA ports. The one with six SATA lacks FireWire. None have truly great layouts (all ports at edges)


Honestly, if there had been some word on high-wattage compatibility, and $25 more in my budget, I'd probably have gotten Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more! (Jetway HA-04 Extreme) for the sheer audacity of design. I like the onboard POST-code display too; wish more boards had it.

Now, what can I expect to get if I flog my E7200, E6750, and P35-DS3L together? Is 200.- unrealistic?