In the forever war between CPU vendors, AMD and Intel have traded places many times—one leads, then the other. Since the advent of Intel’s Core i7, though, AMD hasn’t been able to touch the performance of Intel’s high end, and Sandy Bridge further increases the gap. But, well, you couldn't buy Sandy Bridge motherboards when I wrote this build-it story in February for the May print issue—something about a bad chipset—and I’d been meaning to build an AMD-powered machine for a while now—with CrossFire, even. Why? Partially because I can, but I also want to witness the performance delta firsthand.
Just for kicks, I’m also going to put some effort—and money—into making this system pretty. I’m not going to add lots of flashy lights (though I thought about it); instead, I’m focusing on the case itself and the wiring inside. The result, hopefully, will be a rig I can be proud of, inside and out.
