X58-UD3R or Asus Formula IV 890FX

Hey all, You can see my main rid in my profile. Friend is thinking about buying 2 comps online,
One has a Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and a i7-920 , 6gig 1600,
other is a Asus Formula IV 890FX with a AMD Phenom II X4 980 BE 8gig 1600. 8 gig mem

The rest of the stats are basicily the same. DVD-RW, Same vid cards and HDD. He wants to put a SSD, he's got a corsair Force 3 80gig. What system do yu think is more bang for the buck?

Both have Corsair vengance DDR3 1600
1tb WD cav black
GTX 560ti
corsair gamer 800 or 850w psu

witch system you think would be better for gaming? the i7 930 or the Phenom II. I believe the Formula IV will run true sata 3 speeds unlike the Marvel 9128 controller, and he can also put the new FX 8120 cpu in down the road.
Both are nice systems, which one you think would have the better gaming performance?

i7 is a hell of a lot better for gaming than a PhII. Simple as that. Do both systems cost the same though?

Just to give you an idea I purchased a G850 (Sandy Bridge Pentium) and paired it with 8 gigs of ram and a Geforce GTX 560 (non ti) and it performs in gaming almost the same as my old Phenom II that was stable OCed to 4 Ghz with the same card. We're talking within 10 to 15% performance FPS to FPS. The I7 would destroy my G850 so yea, like I said, the I7 at the same price no comparison.

Any particular reason he is buying 3-4 year old hardware that is end of life?