If OP is gaming and doesn't care to tinker with his computer, there is no reason to be suggesting the K variant SB processors when something like an i5 2400 is already enough to power just about anything short of 3+high end GPUs. I'd normally agree with all of kitty's suggestions, but in this case I'd have to go against recommending the FX processors seeing as how just about every i5/i7 processor outperforms every AMD FX processor in gaming benches, while consuming less power than even the 4 core variants, which need to be clocked at 4+GHz in order to perform similarly well.

Eww. Don't even consider Bulldozer. It's utter crap.

Cost really that's it. The OPer said lower was better, and said *bare minimum*.
Gaming wise, I think that bulldozer will be able to keep up with an intel in most games when paired with a 6870.
An intel build would be fine, but I'd have a hard time justifying the 2600k (@ Great).

The op also said he wanted to play a game like Crysis in full mode, but then later on he asked if Crysis was still the best game to determine power of rigs. I assume full mode means maxed out, and the 6870 can handle that, but crysis is not the best game to determine power anymore (it's rarely ever used in modern benchmarks), so we all really need to hear back from the op to see if he wants to play modern benchmark games maxed out or not before suggesting anything else, (@kitty) the 2600k was only meant for the $800 budget, but the 2400 would suit his needs as well, I still suggest getting the nvidia equivalent to the hd 6870(which I guess would be the gtx 560) not being a fanboy to Nvidia, but the physx is really good for games that support it and ati's eyefinity is better but it requires three monitors)

I mean to say that I don't think the 2600k fits in the $800 budget very well.

"the best game to determine power of rigs" and "the bare minimum" are describing two different computers.

The OP seems to have abandoned their thread. Unless we hear back from the them, there is no telling what answers they were looking for.

@Kitty, then you think with a cpu like the 2400 and a better gfx card would be much better? I guess that makes sense, I just thought a better processor would be better for games that have a lot of tthings going on at once like RTS games. I also agree with cliff about the op's need to reply back to tell us what he's really looking for. According to the op's previous comments he seems to be under the impression that the minimum specs for crysis will allow it to run in "full mode"( which i assume to be maxed out settings at op's monitors highest resolution).

Thanks for putting it in the right perspective. I have all along kept crysis full mode as the real benchmark for gaming pc (sorry for living in the caves )

So can US$700/800 really do justice if I want to play most of the games (if not all ) in the coming 2 or 3 years !

Thanks again for the comments

Shanthi

Yes my $250 budget pc, built 2 years ago, allows me to play many games today in high/ultra settings at 1920 x 1080p, the only thing I've upgraded since then is the hard drive and ram(both upgraded this month), just imagine what $700/800 could get you, and I think my graphics card(HD 4850) is the only thing keeping my pc up to date with the modern games because my processor is terrible, so don't listen to my earlier suggestion about getting a 2600k with the $800 budget, here is a site I use to compare graphics cards and they give you a suggestion of what to buy in your price range for video cards gpureview I personally think your in the $200-$299 range with a $700/$800.