AMD or Intel CPU?

saadman

saadman

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My computer is slowly dying and it's about time for a new one. I haven't bought a computer since the days when Pentium 4 was tops. I don't game much (if any) on my computer. It's mostly used for design purposes (Adobe CS3). I'm looking at no less than a quad-core processor.

Basically, I want to know what CPU you guys think is best for what I need.

AMD - I read AMD is unbeatable for price vs. performance. Plus great for gaming
Intel - A lot of people say it is a more reliable CPU for what I need (which is larger, non-gaming applications)

Also, should I look at refurb systems or not? And should I hold out until around boxing day/week for some better deals?
 
Back when the Pentium 4 was out was when AMD had the better price/performance ratio. Right Intel is tops. I hope AMD does make a comeback though. I'm running an Intel chip in my desktop and AMD in my current notebook.
 
I've always been a fan of AMD, but right now Intel is the way to go, but there should be some good competition when AMD releases the Phenom II, and their Dragon platform in Q1 2009
 
AMD simply hasn't been able to match Intel's pace of advancement. The Phenom product competes with where Intel was a year earlier.

However, if gaming performance isn't an issue then price and other features will be your guide. In terms of reliability you aren't going to see much difference if you go with a good vendor for the mainboard.

Plus, Intel latest generation is just starting to leak out and AMD's is almost on the horizon. Rather than try to get a machine to last many years you may be better served by getting a solid box for a low price and expecting it be your main system for just two years. By then you'll be able to tell if the new architectures offer a major boost for your primary applications.
 
I've always been interested in the actual difference between these chips performance and the noticeable difference during use. I bet most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference outside of benchmarks.
 
[quote name='JolietJake']I've always been interested in the actual difference between these chips performance and the noticeable difference during use. I bet most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference outside of benchmarks.[/quote]

True...and according to AMD's tests Phenoms perform better than core 2 quads in "Real World Applications"

I'm upgrading soon and I'm not sure what to get yet either. I dont think it would be worth it to go with an i7 due to the price (and price of DDR3) along with a fairly small performance increase over current Intel proccessors (according to the reviews I've read so far) But they should overclock like crazy.
 
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It really does depend on what you do with your computer to determine if you will or wont notice the difference in performance.

But you still fall back to the same question: Why would you invest in a technology that universally benchmarks lower than the Intel standard, when the Intel standard is such a bargain? I mean right now you can pick up a Core2Duo Wolfdale chip at 3ghz that will almost be guaranteed to overclock to 3.8 or 4.2Ghz on *stock air*. Just by adjusting the bus speed in the Bios.....for like $160 bucks. :p

Why on earth would you mess with AMD when you can get that level of performance at *that* pricetag?
 
[quote name='HeadRusch']It really does depend on what you do with your computer to determine if you will or wont notice the difference in performance.

But you still fall back to the same question: Why would you invest in a technology that universally benchmarks lower than the Intel standard, when the Intel standard is such a bargain? I mean right now you can pick up a Core2Duo Wolfdale chip at 3ghz that will almost be guaranteed to overclock to 3.8 or 4.2Ghz on *stock air*. Just by adjusting the bus speed in the Bios.....for like $160 bucks. :p

Why on earth would you mess with AMD when you can get that level of performance at *that* pricetag?[/quote]
I wouldn't take overclocking into consideration though. Everything else is true. I have noticed that intel motherboards tend to be more expensive a lot of the time.
 
If you bought a car that had a switch that gave you 100 extra horsepower at no additonal fuel expense to you.....why wouldn't you push it.
 
[quote name='HeadRusch']If you bought a car that had a switch that gave you 100 extra horsepower at no additonal fuel expense to you.....why wouldn't you push it.[/quote]
Come on now, you know overclocking isn't a standard practice, if you fry the thing you're screwed. You can't count potential performance as actual performance, you have to go by the rated speeds for fair comparisons.
 
Speeds mean nothing anymore, Mhz or Ghz are irrelevant now...it comes down to how many operations a chip can do in a given second, and of those operations, which chip is more efficient at getting those operations done quicker. The CD2 bests the AMD designs in these regards. Last round, the Athlons held that crown.

I have overclocked every chip I have ever bought, starting with a 386sx/16Mhz, and I have never had a chip "fry" except for the one time when I fired up a 1ghz athlon and realized the heatsink wasn't seated properly. The whisps of smoke let me know I was too late.

Its next to impossible to "FRY" a chip anymore.....the best you can do is keep pushing one to thermal limits, so it clocks itself down automatically...but your system would be so unstable before that point it wouldn't be usable.

Now if you are talking about buying a machine from DELL, well then we can forget about overclocking because they wont let you, and even their higher end machines have limited ability to mess around. But if you are building it yourself, or having it built for you, overclocking is the obvious path. It doesn't even have to be "extreme" overclocking...the damn chips are so easy to do you can get 600-1Ghz overclocks even with the stock provided heatsink and fan.

And don't think Intel didn't know about it, they released these chips this way deliberately to kill AMD's ownership of the "bang for the buck" market that they held with Athlon and x64...

Overclocking is free performance, and on the C2D's all it requires is a changing of the bus speeds.
 
[quote name='BL00DW0LF']True...and according to AMD's tests Phenoms perform better than core 2 quads in "Real World Applications"[/QUOTE]

...
 
Intel appears to have a better reputation nowadays. Personally, I have both- an Intel processor on my Desktop, and an AMD one on my laptop. Both perform great.
 
[quote name='HeadRusch']Speeds mean nothing anymore, Mhz or Ghz are irrelevant now...it comes down to how many operations a chip can do in a given second, and of those operations, which chip is more efficient at getting those operations done quicker. The CD2 bests the AMD designs in these regards. Last round, the Athlons held that crown.

I have overclocked every chip I have ever bought, starting with a 386sx/16Mhz, and I have never had a chip "fry" except for the one time when I fired up a 1ghz athlon and realized the heatsink wasn't seated properly. The whisps of smoke let me know I was too late.

Its next to impossible to "FRY" a chip anymore.....the best you can do is keep pushing one to thermal limits, so it clocks itself down automatically...but your system would be so unstable before that point it wouldn't be usable.

Now if you are talking about buying a machine from DELL, well then we can forget about overclocking because they wont let you, and even their higher end machines have limited ability to mess around. But if you are building it yourself, or having it built for you, overclocking is the obvious path. It doesn't even have to be "extreme" overclocking...the damn chips are so easy to do you can get 600-1Ghz overclocks even with the stock provided heatsink and fan.

And don't think Intel didn't know about it, they released these chips this way deliberately to kill AMD's ownership of the "bang for the buck" market that they held with Athlon and x64...

Overclocking is free performance, and on the C2D's all it requires is a changing of the bus speeds.[/quote]
You can do separate tests, at rated speed and whatever speed you can get from overclocking, but it still isn't fair to say one is better than the other because it can overclock further, unless that's absolutely all you're testing them for.

It'd be like saying one engine is better than another because you can add a super charger and get more horsepower.
 
i own two AMD processors (XP, A64) but Intel is undeniably superior right now, and that's why i went to the Dark Side for my current PC.

Core i7 is even better than Core 2 so there really is no debate as to which company is making better processors.
 
Except in the case of chips, its like Intel is giving yout he supercharger for free in the trunk...all you gotta do is install it.
 
I like Intel, especially because all the new 45nm processors are really easy to overclock, and their prices are really good. AMD is kind of falling right now.
 
This thread makes me sad that I didn't dish out a few extra dollars for an Intel in my notebook. :whistle2:( The Intel model came with an HDMI out too. :whistle2:(
 
One thing I always wondered is why there is only two choices in CPU's. Every other computer component seems to have a million different brands.
 
[quote name='HeadRusch']Except in the case of chips, its like Intel is giving yout he supercharger for free in the trunk...all you gotta do is install it.[/quote]
Whatever man, i'm not into to overclocking and everything. I just know that you can't compare overclocking performance on a CPU unless that's specifically what you're looking for, otherwise wtf is the point?

To use the analogy again, it'd be like having a supercharger i'll never use.
 
It's because a factory for CPU R&D and construction costs billions.

[quote name='JolietJake']Whatever man, i'm not into to overclocking and everything. I just know that you can't compare overclocking performance on a CPU unless that's specifically what you're looking for, otherwise wtf is the point?

To use the analogy again, it'd be like having a supercharger i'll never use.[/QUOTE]To continue your ridiculous analogy, you're getting the extra supercharger for no extra cost. Whether you take advantage of it or not is up to you.
 
[quote name='Bezerker']One thing I always wondered is why there is only two choices in CPU's. Every other computer component seems to have a million different brands.[/quote]

Intel and AMD own their fabrication facilities (which cost over a billion dollars). other component companies don't actually manufacture their products, they're sourced to huge independent fabs like TSMC
 
If memory serves me right, their used to be several (at least one other) chip firm but I think the competition between AMD and Intel drove them out of business.
 
I'm still rockin' the old school Socket 939 mobo with an AMD Opteron 185 server chip in it. It's pretty ancient, but it still blows through most everything I throw at it.
 
Intel. You can get a Q6600 and overclock it to 3.0 GHz without touching the voltage, provided you have a decent motherboard. No increase in voltage = no fried CPU.
 
AMD motherboards and CPUs are cheaper and are realistically fine for most people. If you just wanted a computer for basic tasks and maybe a little 3D gaming on the side, AMD would be the way to go for price if you knew you weren't ever going to use it for anything else.

Intel CPUs have a much much higher price/performance ratio, but if you don't need/want the extra power, no point in paying more for it.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116052
E2180
2ghz stock
800MHz FSB
1mb l2 cache
Hyper-Threading Support No
Virtualization Technology Support No
$69.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103234
Athlon 64 X2 5600
2.9ghz stock
(AMD doesn't use FSB, uses the much faster HyperTransport tech which is basically what is now used in the new i7 line from intel. not that it makes much of a noticeable difference, but still...)
x2 512kb cache (ie. 1mb)
Hyper-Threading Support Yes
Virtualization Technology Support Yes
$69.00

Why would you pick the E2180, even if you were fortunate enough to get one that could hit that 3.2 mark, which is very unlikely if you were to order one today, the 64 X2 is already at 2.9, its not going to be much of a stretch for even an AMD processor to go up another .3 ghz. Its cheaper, supports the hyperthreading and virtualization if you care, its faster if you don't. The motherboard for it will, in all likelihood, be cheaper as well.

If you really want to make a cheap ass computer yourself, AMD is the way to go. You just won't find much support to your questions about it, because Intel is dominating the mid and high end, so many people just say screw it and go with Intel in the low as well.

And let me add this because I know someone will bring it up.

The Intel CPU does perform more operations per cycle than the AMD one, so if they were clocked equally, the Intel would be better.
 
Well, since I'm kinda in the same boat (mine died on Sunday Thanksgiving weekend R.I.P), I'm also wondering what's good nowadays (haven't built one since 2003) since I haven't kept up. My budget is $1200. I want this to be future proofed (open to future upgrades for at least 6-8 yrs). My questions:

Quad-core: is it worth it? I'll be gaming as well as displaying/rendering 3D images so I need something robust.

Video card: SLI or Crossfire?

Motherboard: ATX still standard? Which brand? Or it doesn't matter anymore? I tend towards Soyo & Acer board but I'm not married to them.

Memory: I used Corsair XMS; is this brand still good? Or it doesn't matter anymore?

Sound: Onboard or dedicated Soundblaster? I'm not an audiophile but I tend to like dedicated card audio. It 'sounds' better.

Case: I probably don't need a new one as I can recycle my ATX-compatible Liang Li but I don't mind checking out new ones.

Hard drives: stay on IDE or switch up to SATA? What difference does it make towards games/rendering?
 
Quad-core up to you. You can "gamble" on things moving to support more cores, but its probably going to happen sooner or later. Right now, not worth the money IMO, but if you want to try to future proof it (which is silly imo) you could go for an i7 quad and spend a cockload.

Video card: right now the ATI cards are slightly better for the price. That can always change with the release of the new card. Nvidia was ahead for the longest time. A 4870 x2 or a 280 are the big dogs of the GPU world right now. Stupid expensive too. As in 400$+ More realistically, a single 4870 or 9800 gts would do you fine for now.

Motherboard: x48 and up chipset on mobo if you want full crossfire.
Soyo and Acer wtf?
Gigabyte is the popular one atm.

Memory: Most shit is good these days. Pay attention to timings and speed. 4-4-4-12/5-5-5-15 800 is the popular standard right now, you could go for 1066 if you wanted with looser timings. Prices are starting to fall on it. Go for 4gb. Might as well with ridiculous prices like 30$ for x2 2gb sticks of 800.

Sound: If you really want a sound card, think about what you'd use it for. M-Audio for legit audio stuff. Creative for gaming and general use. Onboard is pretty damn good these days with the move to HD.

Case: You're probably fine. ATX is still a standard.

Hard drive: Why in the hell would you want IDE? Pretty much all new HDDs are SATA these days anyway, so you probably won't have much of a choice. 7200rpm for standard, 10k if you want, its a little faster and they don't all burn up these days.
 
jaykrue:

Quad-core: if you're rendering definitely go quad. Q9550, Q9300 or even an older Q6600. AMD Phenom you've got the 9950

Video card: unless you're gaming at 2560x1600 or something, SLI/Crossfire are unnecessary. a card like a ATI 4870/4850 should be enough for all games, except Crysis of course :lol:

Motherboard: ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI are good

Memory: Corsair, Kingston, Crucial, Geil, OCZ, Mushkin, etc. all make good memory

Sound: Onboard

Case: keep the Lian Li, nice cases

Hard drives: if you have IDE drives, might as well just keep them as long as they're not ancient. but HDD are real cheap now, pick up a 640GB WD for $70 or so
 
Out of curiosity i check the prices on those WD Raptor drives the other day, i tohught by now they'd have gone down in price, was i wrong. I kinda thought that since they had been around for a while that they'd gotten cheaper.
 
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