Upgrade AMD rig or build Intel i7 rig?

[philaaay]

So I set myself about $1,800 for a new machine and I'm in dilemma of which route to go. My current rig is in my signature and first wanted to go the upgrade path. Decided on two XFX 5870s, Corsair 800D case with Corsair TX950w PSU, 2 GBs more of G. Skill ram, another WD Raptor 300 GB to put in raid 0, and the AMD Phenom 1090t Black Edition 6-core CPU - total cost to me, around $1,706.66 shipped.

However, just to play around, I decided to build up an i7/GTX 480 rig and came up with the following: WD Raptor 300 GB HDD, Corsair Dominator 6 GB DDR3 12800 RAM, ASUS GTX 480, LG DVD burner, Zalman CNPS9900 LED cooler, Corsair 800D with TX950w PSU, Intel i7 930 with EVGA X58 FTW3 motherboard: total cost to me, around $1,836.02 shipped.

That's about a $120 difference and I figured if I go the Intel i7 route, I can sell my unit in the sig for around $500 or so, ultimately bringing my total costs for the i7 rig to around 1336.02.

Thoughts on each build? Yes, I'm aware that it's a ton of money, etc. and that my current rig should be sufficient enough to run most games right now, but at the same time, most of this money is coming from my Bank of America Keep The Change program (saved up about 1100 BUCKS!) LOL and some leftover money from financial aid and wanted to treat myself.

So honest thoughts will be very helpful. Thank you!

 

[Aastii]

I would rethink your hard drive decision, because of what was mentioned in this thread:

http://www.computerforum.com/181531-raptor-hard-drives.html

Going by the price on newegg, 3 500GB Samsung F3 drives match the price of a single 300GB Velociraptor. You could Fill your current drive with 0s a few times and sell it to fund getting 4 F3's and a raid controller and set the drives in RAID 0+1, so you get the increased speed, and stability. Or, you could just get 2 drives in RAID 0 and keep the Velociraptor as storage, or (this is probably the best option) use the Velociraptor as storage and get an SSD for the same price as another drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227550

For the video card, for the AMD build I would go for a single 5970 rather than crossfired 5870's, if you were doing the Intel build, I would SLI 2 GTX460s, both of which would be slightly cheaper

 

[Drenlin]

Honestly, I'd wait till early '11 when the Bulldozer cpu's and Radeon 6000-series gpu's are out. Everything that's out now besides nvidia's 4xx cards is near the end of its lifespan. Your current rig is great, like you said...no point in upgrading again to the same architecture. I would go ahead and get a better PSU now, though...