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AMD vs Intel
I'm looking to do a complete overhaul of my computer in about 2 or 3 months, and I'm a bit confused about processors and CPUs. I've always just stuck with Intel by default so I really don't know anything about how AMD works. What would be comparable to an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 or QX9650? What are the pros and cons of each brand? Another thing I've noticed when comparing processors is an AMD with 2.6 GHz is comparable to an Intel with 3.2 GHz, or something along those lines. Can someone explain this please?
Comments
Your processor choice is always about compromise. But when you say overhaul unless your pc is quite new chnces ar eyou are pretty much going to be replacing a lot of the key compnents becasue things have moved on a lot faster over the last couple of years relative to say 5-6 years ago.
Ay amy one time intel is preffered over AMD or visa versa. The difference is minimal if you are not spending 5k on a pc.
Most hardware hits a sweet spot sometime after release. It wont be the latest but it will have been massively reduced in price vs its performance at the point the manufacturer have decided its now a mass market product (or they want it to become one) rather than a niche product for people with cash to burn or who need the latest technology.
AMD processors tend to be cheaper but they were preffered by gamers over intel for a long time and often outperformed them - not that the average user would notice the difference.
If you are buying a processor for gaming at the moment you probably dont want to be spending much more than $250 on the processor and in al likelihood intel is the better choice/preffered choice.
Quad core or dual core ? Well again largely personal choice - some favour quad over dual but it really makes little difference unless you want the flexibility a quad core gives you for things other than gaming and general multi tasking. Some sweet highly overclockable quad and dual core chips out there right now - so in some respects it would be silly to pay $200 more for a chip when you could easily overclock the one thats $200 less if you happen to think the extra processing power is going hange you life !
AMD recently started to fight back wit ha better offereing to go at intels domiance in quad/dual core market but the yare probably not quite there yet. Id advise you search sites like toms hardware or just on the processors name/type to read reviews and make your mind up. Personally i dont think you can beat a quad core from intel right now for all round utilty and value with great overclocking potential and an established fanbase amoungst gamers and non gamers alike.
Remmber it is the speed of your RAM and the quantity / quality of it that is more important than your processor - or at least equally inportant whe nyou ar splitting hairs over a couple of different models.
You want a decent graphics card and a stable power supply too on a mothervoard that offers the features you will use and has some expandability. DDR3 is still prohibitively expensive and DDR2 very cheap.
So the answer is - it depends - but when you build / buy a pc you have to look at hte whole becasue essentailly it is your motherboard. processor ram and GFx card that are the core of the system closely followed by your power supply. By and large your Hdrive is next with everything else way down on the list.
No point sticking a shit hot engine in a new people carrier and being surpsied when it falsl apart or cant corner wel lenough wit hthat engine in it.
Oh and maybe think about ditching Vista for XP - you can always "upgrade" (cough) later.
Caveat Emptor
If you have the cash for Intel, Go intel !!
And nvidia graphic card, not a to crappy one.
Alot of people have huge bottle necks, like an imba cpu but less of a good Graphic card.. Always have a good graphic card when gaming.
Its like this, Imba cpu, windows and software loads faster. Thats about it.
Then when ur ingame, the cpu doesnt matter that much anymore, thats when the graphic card steps in and takes over kind of.
For gaming the most important thing is ur graphic card, second is the ammount of ram you have in ur rig.. third is the cpu u got... pretty easy
If you're not doing a budget build, Intel is the way to go. AMD has no comparable CPUs at the top-end (argue-able). Here's an old chart, but it's still relevant.
www.tomshardware.com/charts/processors/3d-studio-max-9,369.html
http://spellborn.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
That was exactly what I was looking for, thanks.
I mean come on be fair this is a 2007 chart I mean this was when 939 was the hotest thing and thats a while back now they only dual cores then. Ok AMD vs INTEL is a hot topic but intel is out in front ATM but then you have to be willing to pay top price. Personaly I just built a M3A with 4gb ram 260GTX and a 500GB + 5000 CPU for £360 and it can do all the Quad core stuff when the price is right. Ok so you might say that I am mug for going nvida rather than ATI but there is no garentee on ATI cards plus I wanted it for TV out for watching movies and nvida drivers are better.
https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySavedWishDetail.aspx?ID=10568048
That's my plan for my new AMD Desktop. You can drop one of the 4870's if you wanna cut the price.
Whats not fair about it. There are Phenom's and a 6400+ that are AM2. AMD isn't the top dog anymore like with the Athlons. Core2 is best thing right now and if AMD don't do something quick Nahelm will continue to be the top. I used to be an AMD fan but I started running into problems. I've never had one problem with and Intel. So I stick to what works for me.
These are more up to date... but after having a closer look they don't seem quite right!!
that is all good and each to our own I stick with asus motherboards because they seam to deliver good performance for me this artical on youtube sum's up quite well the AMD vs INTEL descusion I think www.youtube.com/watch
at this time I would definitely go with intel. Even the top Phenom struggles against the bottom line intel quad the q6600 which is currently $184 on newegg. It doesn't get any better for AMD with the dual cores. Also if you're not building right away the intel prices are only going to get better with i7 on the way. The reason amd prices are low is because it's the only way they can sell their processors because the performance just isn't there and it's likely going to take them at least 2 years to catch up.
member of imminst.org
SATA RAID is a quick way to speed up load times.
Remember you dont need to buy huge drives, Im running 2x 70gb drives that cost me $140 2 years ago and Im first to load in my party every time xD
I've always had problems with ATI drivers but everyone insists that the HD 4850 is superior
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Note: PlayNC will refuse to allow you access to your account if you forget your password and can't provide a scanned image of the product key for the first product you purchased..... LOL
unless you are going to buy an expensive hardware raid controller the speed increase is pretty small
member of imminst.org
Don't listen to the people here who think they know what they are talking about. After reading some of their replies i can tell they have no clue.
1. There are no consumer software products being utilized or even designed to run on quad core processors for residential use. Quad core is specifically desgined for servers right now which only so many hardware specs DO utilize, like IBM Blade Servers for one example.
2. AMD has always out performed Intel pentium based processors and it is noticeable. AMD processors were originally designed for the gamer in mind and processed data much faster than intel processors could process the data from 3D games. Even though the intel quad core processors are faster they are in no way being utilized by any games so you are not getting any performance boost whatsoever. Again, quad core is only being utilized by server technology at the moment. So yes AMD is out performing the intel processors currently.
3. Whenever you are building a rig designed mostly for gaming or just gaming stick with the AMD processors, you'll thank me later.
You also need to do your homework, never ever come on a forum like this one for example and ask a question like this. Most of these people think they know when in fact they don't which was evident after i read most of the replies.
Try this website for starters it'll help you do some researching http://www.motherboards.org
dud, what year are you in right now?
1) There are currently at least a half dozen games on the market that are optimized for quad core processors with more on the way. Games optimized for dual cores will also benefit from quad core processors as non games tasks can be pushed to the other two cores. There are also quite a few multimedia programs such as photo and video editors that are optimized for quad core processors.
2) AMD has been getting creamed by intel since the core 2 line launched. Back in the P4 vs. athelon 64 days AMD did out perform Intel, especially in gaming. That was years ago though. AMD has been playing catchup every since the core 2 line was launched and has been faller behind instead of actually catching up
3) right now all AMD is, is a budget line because their processors can't match up head to head against Intels. When you see their top Phenoms stuggling against intels original quad the Q6600 that should be all you need to know.
If anything you need to do your homework and get with the times. It's not 2005 anymore
member of imminst.org
n25philly is correct.
Vista utilizes quad core and I must say very very nicely, running smooth with all the bells and whistles on.
AMD does have a slightly smarter architecture, but still falls way short in Intel's performance. Also go through the tech forums of more recent games, you'll see just about every problem has to do with an AMD processor based machine, or ATI for all that matter.
As far as motherboards, ASUS brand is all you need to know, start there.
The problem with AMD's processors right now is they while the architecture is smart, that's about it. They have heat issues and are very inefficient because of it which is why despite all their posturing of true quad core the performance is average at best. Intel had similar problems with heat and inefficiency in the p4 days. AMD is in better shape to rebound than intel was at the time, but intel can afford to not be the best a lot easier than AMD can. It's likely going to be 2 years minimum before AMD can catch up and the question is that as bad as business is going for them will they be able to survive that long.
member of imminst.org
The thing is outside gaming AMD has caught up over the last year as more of the inhibiting features are addressed. In heavily multi-threaded applications, AMD is starting to just shine. In rendering, compressing, and floating point calculations with modern software. AMD is often better then Intel and at a lower cost.
The secret is thier platform makes up for thier processors inability. Its simply the best platform right now. BTW, even Intel is having trouble trying to make a consumer Quad Core to be better then the Q6600.
The question "Which CPU manufacturer should I go with?" should be replaced by "Which CPU manufacturer supports the chipset that I have decided to go with?" I beleive AMD vs Intel is really a small choice when compared to choosing the right chipset. You cannot use an AMD on a P45 Chipset but you can on an nForce chip. Some nForce AMD boards might have features that you want. First of all choose which technology you want to use and then the features, by that time you would have chosen a CPU manufacturer automatically.
My specs:
Asus P5QL-E 775 P43
Intel C2D E8500 3.16G
Asus V72 R Cooler
G.Skill 2Gx2 DDR2 8500
BFG Geforce 8800 GTS
Creative X-FI
WD Caviar 150GB SATAII 16M OS/PF/VM
Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATAII 32M Games
Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATAII 32M x2 ICH10R Raid1 Data
Lite-on PATA DVD 16D2P
Lite-on PATA DVDRW 20A4P
Antec Trio 650W PSU
Antec 900 Enclosure
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
What are you talking about? Intel's been shipping out their penryns underclocked because AMD hasn't been able to put something that can compete and Intel's putting out their next generation processor real soon that is going to have huge gains on anything either company has out right now.
member of imminst.org
Do not ask a game forum such questions (no offense).
www.overclockersclub.com
www.ocforums.com
You'll get people that know the inside and out of processors and graphics.
What are you talking about? Intel's been shipping out their penryns underclocked because AMD hasn't been able to put something that can compete and Intel's putting out their next generation processor real soon that is going to have huge gains on anything either company has out right now.
The entire reason for Nahelhiem is because of AMDs performance in the non-gaming uses of processors. When it comes to server side, AMD is winning, HTCP, SpecVIEW, and Virtualization have AMDs at the top not Intels. AMD has been edging out on nearly all quad core optimized applications and floating point calculations.
That and with overclocked Q6600's benched against overclocked Q9300's, there is a -4%~8% difference in performance.
That was exactly what I was looking for, thanks.
i find it funny to say that AMD has no comparable CPUs at the top end, especially using this link as a reference. the top on that list is intel Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 priced at $1019.99 on newegg. the next 3 are from AMD. so intel has #1 at over a thousand dollars. can't find a price for number 2 (AMD Phenom 9700) but number 3 is AMD Phenom 9600 priced at $139. price is over 7x, but yet the performance on that chart is not even double.
if we forget the thousand dollar cpu and limit it to the affordable ones, AMD has spots 1, 2, and 3 on that chart. so buy intel, because everybody has a grand to spend on their CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115026&Tpk=qx 6850
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103244
Nice post thunder, thanks
I am going to take a lot of your advice to the store!
Games Played: World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, Asheron's Call 2 and Star Wars Galaxies.
I recently upgraded my rig to handle AoC. At the same time my cousin, my dad, and a friend upgraded theirs for the same reason. Me and my friend both went with AMD Quad-cores. I went with the 9850BE and him the 9750. Both my dad and cousing went with the intel 'Quad Cores' (not sure which chips) and honestly they are very close in terms of speed but I feel that the intels both performed better out of the box but did not have as many issues with: windows, games, mobo compatiblity...
I do love my AMD Quad-core but if you just want a computer that you start using and dont have to worry about techin your self out to make sure things work properly I would go with the Intel.
But dont forget the Vid card especially for playing games. If you gotta cut corners some make sure your running at least 2gigs of ram and have at least and 8800gt nvidia graphics card. They make such a huge difference its crazy!
Good luck to ya!
go for intel!! sick overclocking features.. you'll surely get your money's worth man