Question : Problem: Buy the Phenom II 720 or an ATI 4870?

Hi,

Oh the lovely dilemnas recessions provide.  All the goodies get cheaper.

So here's my question.  The new (excellent) Phenom II 720 is going for about $144 on Newegg.  ATI just announced they are dropping the price for their 4870 to $149.  So which to choose?  Right now I have a 6000+ CPU and an 8800 GT Video Card which are both solid if not spectacular.

Basically, I use my rig for Office Stuff and gaming.  Right now I can play COD4 maxxed online and it only gets hinky occasionally.  I think I would appreciate the 720 more for office stuff and the 4870 more for gaming.

Which is most bang for my buck?

Answer : Problem: Buy the Phenom II 720 or an ATI 4870?

The Phenom II 720 scores 2736 on the Passmark benchmark http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html, while the 6000+ scores 1309.  A comparison of the HD4870 versus the 8800GT http://lly316.blogspot.com/2009/01/8800gt-vs-hd4870-1gb-farcry-2-benchmark.html shows almost a doubling of framerates.  You're probably not likely to appreciate the cpu speed increase as much as the framerate increase, unless you regularly compress video or audio files or perform lengthy calculations where you have to wait hours.