Best CPU for a Single ATI Radeon HD 5870 and ATI Radeon HD 5870 CrossFireX Configurat

[LedHed]

Comparing i7 (Quad Core) against Core2Duo (Dual core) is pretty much retarded.

They should compare i7 against Core2Quad.

I agree it is somewhat skewed since they are comparing 2 cores to 4 cores and like you said C2Q would be a better comparison. My question is how does the C2D@5ghz+ (since many extreme OCers push the 45nm Wolfdale through the 5ghz wall) do against the i7 at stock? I'm really surprised the C2D@4.1ghz pulled the numbers it did.

The difference between Core2Duo 4.1 vs i7 4.1 is almost 50% every case, so Crysis does take advantage of SMT.

I guess you are ignoring the fact that at 1920x1200 where the GPU is finally getting stressed the C2D@4.1ghz is only 2-3fps different than the i7 when the GPU is under maximum stress (Fully IQ@1920x1200). This is the main reason I went with a highly clocked dual core system, many games just don't use all 4 cores effectively and the higher clocked C2D pulls ahead for that reason. Now down the road yes the quads will pull away but right now the C2D@4ghz+ are pretty good CPUs even at the high end market. If you play at 1920x1200 it really depends on your GPU a lot more than your CPU.