[Ghostavo]

Over the past few months I've have been doing research regarding what path of upgrades to follow, as of now these are my options:

Option 1: Socket 1366
KINGSTON PC3-12800 HYPERX TRI CHANNEL 6Gb      = 169.95 €
INTEL CORE I7 920 2.66 GHZ 8 MB BOX                     = 244.95 €
ASUS P6X58D PREMIUM                                            = 284.95 €

TOTAL = 708.85 €

Option 2: Socket 1156
GSKILL PC3-16000 TRIDENT 2000MHZ DC 4Gb (2x2048) = 137.50 €
INTEL CORE I7 860 2.80 GHZ 8 MB BOX                           = 274.95 €
ASUS P7P55D-E                                                                = 152.50 €

TOTAL =  564.95 €

I use the PC besides generic use (browsing, watching movies, etc...), mostly for games, virtualization and heavy IDEs.

These components will join an ATI HD 4890 from my previous system.

Which of these two options is better for my needs? Is the extra 140 € worth it for option 1?

Also these prices were taken from local shops, any advice regarding prices from newegg and other such sources are likely to be useless due to my location, so if you recommend another component, try to take these points as reference. It sucks to buy components in Europe.

[ChaosityZ]

I was debating over the same two choices last month, and all my research led me to choose option #2.
When running an application that doesnt support the 4 cores (8 threads)  both processors will shut down the un-used cores and increase speed to the active cores.  The Core i7 860 has a higher turbo threshold and will run faster in a single or dual mode than the 920.
the 860 also uses less power to accomplish the same task, and is cheaper.   

[pecenipicek]

i vote for the second option too. not that you'll ever see me buying an intel ever again...


but i feel your pain regarding prices in europe... every bloody ****ing retailer tends to raise their margins as high as inhumanly possible -.-

[CP5670]

The second option is better. I don't see much point in going X58 these days. The triple channel memory barely does anything and while X58 setups overclock slightly better, the differences are small and only show up beyond 4ghz. You may want more memory than 4GB if you plan to run a lot of VMs at once, but that can easily be done in a P55 machine.

Also, the 300 euro motherboard is a ripoff, even if you want an X58 setup. Those high end boards do almost nothing over the $200-ish ones.

[Liberator]

The HyperX that Kingston makes is really, really good usually, but it's usually more expensive.  It's usually very compatible also.  That said, I've probably sold/bought enough G.Skill over the last few years to bankroll a small country and it's usually really good as well, cheaper too.  Since you said this was going to be a general use machine and not a mega gaming machine, I'd probably get the gskill.

[Ghostavo]

Also, the 300 euro motherboard is a ripoff, even if you want an X58 setup. Those high end boards do almost nothing over the $200-ish ones.

If you think that's a ripoff, think of it this way, it was one of the cheapest I found!

The HyperX that Kingston makes is really, really good usually, but it's usually more expensive.  It's usually very compatible also.  That said, I've probably sold/bought enough G.Skill over the last few years to bankroll a small country and it's usually really good as well, cheaper too.  Since you said this was going to be a general use machine and not a mega gaming machine, I'd probably get the gskill.

Ditto for the Kingston vs the GSkill. 

[Bob-san]

Option #1 is only at an advantage in two ways...
1) SLI or Crossfire at x16-x16
2) 50% more RAM; I noticed when I dropped my little Wolfdale from 6GB to 4GB; it slowed down a bit on an older Windows 7 install.

Turbo ratios don't mean much; just overclock it. However, the i7-860 would overclock pretty darn well on its own and would have the advantage of a higher multiplier (you can usually select the max turbo multi and force it to apply to all 4 cores). If you're perhaps interested in using a secondary card (perhaps a G92 variation) for PhysX, most x16-x4 boards (ie: P55's typical setup) would probably match your needs much better. That second slot DOES suffer from too-little-bandwidth-itus to be used for a newer SLI or Crossfire configuration.