Hi guys, im building a new computer just for gaming. It will also be used to surf the net and play the odd song. NO encoding/professional applications or anything like that.

I had been planning on going the i7 x58 route with crossfire hd 4870's but im having second thoughts.

I have been researching gaming benchmarks of the phenom ii x4 vs the intel i7 and am starting to doubt if spending the extra cash on the i7 rig is worth it for my uses.

I realise the i7 will completly crush the AMD phenom X4 in synthetic benchmarks and professional applications but from what iv seen the phenom is very close in terms of gaming performance.

I wont go to much into the specific components im considering but this is the gist of it.

-the i7 setup will cost me about $446 more then if i go with an AMD AM3 790X board that will run 2 grpahics cards at 8x / 8x.

the i7 setup will cost me about $330 more then if i go with an AMD AM3 790FX board that will run 2 grpahics cards at full 16x /16x bandwidth.

Basically what i really want to know is if im on the right track taking a U turn and considering AMD? as all i will be using the PC for is gaming.

Will running two 4870's  - each at only 8x bandwidth create much of a bottleneck?
My understandning is that 8x shoudlent bottleneck untill you get into uber high end cards (5870, 4870x2 etc) Also when you think about it - if you put a 4870x2 multi GPU card into a full bandwidth 16x slot - that in itself is esentially running two cards at 8x ? correct? as escentially two cards are sharing one 16x slot.

Is the i7 worth $446 more considering my uses?

If i go with AMD, is having 2 pic-e slots running at full 16x worth a price premium of $116?

one last thing - i also have this idea in my head that perhaps if i went with the more expensive AMD 790FX option it will be somewhat more future proof- as it will accept the new 6 core AMD processors that are due to be released soon(so will the cheaper 790X option though) and also have the bandwidth to support future high-end cards.(in the future i could prossibly pair up a 6 core processor with 2 high end cards running at full 16x)

What do you guys think is the better option? I could put the extra $ saved towards a new monitor.
sorry for the big post with heaps of questions! but i need opinions! thanks