Intel or AMD CPUs

[ben1234]

I was bored and somehow I suddenly got the idea to find out who are the Intel and AMD fans here so vote away!

P.S. This is really for a friend of mine who's looking for a new CPU to replace his old one.

[Smidge204]

Right now, Intel has the best performance for the dollar.

AMD will be releasing their new "Phenom" quad-core processors very soon, though, and we should be getting some good real world benchmarks on it then. (Engineering sample benchmarks are always... questionable)

No telling if AMD will retake the top spot, or for how long if they do, but between now and Christmas I'd recommend an Intel system.
=Smidge=

[onizuka-gto]

AMD is great value for money, and always will be.

But it has slipped from the top performance crown, while AMD will always find it "easier" to process gaming tasks, it lacks the performance for work related task which unless you got a separated pc for the task, isn't on par with intel.

However, the new amd Spider, and a true quad-core chip, (that is not two duo chips put together) with four lots of everything, will make some sort of impact.


the only thing amd realyl has to push is its designs for the laptop market.

AMD have great energy efficiency, laptops using amd on optimal power configurationg can eek out at leased 30-60mins more the its intel version, which can really be a benefit.

the other reason is the integrated RADEON GPU/AMD processor core design, which is a video card and processor mash together.
leaving room where a graphic card is, for other stuff, like...more battery!

or readyboost memory or something.

thats the exciting part.

the only real task is the timing, too early and it will flop, too late and they miss the boat.


oh well ,as any top dogs who hit the top, your gonna fall, so we just gotta hope amd rise the challenge as intel did, and bring out more shiny stuff for us to play with!

[ainsoph9]

Huh. It is funny that this topic was brought up. One of my classmates gave a presentation on this very topic on Monday. He is admittedly bias towards AMD, but he gave a pretty accurate report. Basically, AMD will not win any awards for speed in the near future, even with their new series coming out. However, AMD's processors do have better access times than Intel because AMD makes their chips all on one process or wafer. Intel tends to make theirs on separate processes. Right now, I personally do not care, and I have no real opinion as to who is the better company, but I do still find it interesting to observe.

Smidge204 wrote:

AMD will be releasing their new "Phenom" quad-core processors very soon, though, and we should be getting some good real world benchmarks on it then. (Engineering sample benchmarks are always... questionable)

As an engineering major, I take offense at your comment about engineering! Grr!

[Smidge204]

It seems Oni is living in 2005. Intel's Core 2 and Centrino lines have completely wiped the floor with AMD's offerings in all categories for the past year and a half.

And I'm not even an Intel fanboy. The Athlon series of processors were superior to the P4 offerings at the time, and so that's what I bought. My latest rig has a Core 2 Duo E6600 because that was, again, the best bang-for-the-buck at the time.

"Spider" is the entire platform, not the processor. The processor itself is based on the "Phenom" core. The "Spider" platform consists fo a Phenom processor, mainboard chipset and graphics components.

If AMD comes out with a better product, that's what I'll buy next. Simple!

As an engineering major, I take offense at your comment about engineering! Grr!

Then, as an Engineering major, you should know what an "Engineering sample" is any why it is both technically and politically difficult to base reliable benchmarks on one...
=Smidge=

/Professional Mechanical Engineer

[ainsoph9]

Smidge204 wrote:

Then, as an Engineering major, you should know what an "Engineering sample" is any why it is both technically and politically difficult to base reliable benchmarks on one...

Yes, I do understand why it is difficult to create reliable benchmarks. However, for purposes of electrical and computer designs, usually definitive standards exist. In the case of computers and processors, one of those would be SPEC. This benchmark is usually used as the industry standard. Still, I would be cautious as to how you interpret the results of such a benchmark because the results can sometimes be deceptive (when you do not take Amdahl's Law into effect.) The only reason why I think that benchmarks are good is just for a reference point. Also, for benchmarks like SPEC, I would not use them on my personal computer only for the sole purpose that the benchmarks are meant for industrial use.

As far as politics go, could you please clarify what you mean? If you mean politics between companies, that is quite understandable, but if you mean governmental politics, that is completely different. Moreover, if you mean the politics between the engineers within organizations like SPEC and IEEE, that is the only place that I would be somewhat inclined to disagree about the politics. While these non-profit organizations lobby in governmental circles, I find that they are usually pretty good about self-correction in terms of bringing about a well-rounded viewpoint. I will say though that their viewpoints are sometimes lacking in taking into account everything, but they still get the overall job done.

[onizuka-gto]

It seems Oni is living in 2005. Intel's Core 2 and Centrino lines have completely wiped the floor with AMD's offerings in all categories for the past year and a half.

And I'm not even an Intel fanboy. The Athlon series of processors were superior to the P4 offerings at the time, and so that's what I bought. My latest rig has a Core 2 Duo E6600 because that was, again, the best bang-for-the-buck at the time.

"Spider" is the entire platform, not the processor. The processor itself is based on the "Phenom" core. The "Spider" platform consists fo a Phenom processor, mainboard chipset and graphics components.

If AMD comes out with a better product, that's what I'll buy next. Simple!

As an engineering major, I take offense at your comment about engineering! Grr!

Then, as an Engineering major, you should know what an "Engineering sample" is any why it is both technically and politically difficult to base reliable benchmarks on one...
=Smidge=

/Professional Mechanical Engineer

2005 was a good year. one obvious reason was that i was younger and still in education. good times!

but i still stand by the reason that AMD processors are still great for value, you need a home server, a spare NAS, a digital living room pc, AMD is your CPU.

But true, Intel has better performance, not arguing that.

But i still get a kick using my over clocked AMD 1.95GHz Opteron, running at 2.8Ghz fly like its on speed.

stable too, as long as the weather stays cold outside. which isn't a trouble in miserable UK, well except summer. (keeping the Water cooling radiator towers outside in the back garden can do wonders for your pc, just gotta keep the neighbours cat trying to chew the pipes.)


But multi-core performance is certainly Intel, i use Intel's everyday on my laptop.

it really is a great working processor, but i don't even bother trying to use it for any games.

[Smidge204]

We might have different opinions on what "value" means in this context...

Not entirely sure why you keep mentioning games either. If you're basing that on the promise of the new "spider" platform then that's silly, because it's not available yet.

If you have any benchmarks for an AMD vs Intel system using identical graphics hardware that shows AMD is a clear lead, I'd love to see it. Right now, though, it doesn't seem AMD is going to gain any ground on Intel this round.
=Smidge=

[Dan]

Article on AMD's new product I ran across: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=946

[ainsoph9]

Smidge204 wrote:

We might have different opinions on what "value" means in this context...

Not entirely sure why you keep mentioning games either. If you're basing that on the promise of the new "spider" platform then that's silly, because it's not available yet.

If you have any benchmarks for an AMD vs Intel system using identical graphics hardware that shows AMD is a clear lead, I'd love to see it. Right now, though, it doesn't seem AMD is going to gain any ground on Intel this round.
=Smidge=

As far as games are concerned with processors, I agree that they are not a really good measure of performance. However, I must say that games, especially the newest ones, tend to push the capabilities of processors and video cards. So, games like Half-Life 2 are sometimes used to compare processing power. This is especially true among the hardcore gaming elite. I just like to think of it as the layman's way of understanding processing power. So, for gamers and the like, it is their version of a benchmark.

[Umiman]

Smidge204 wrote:

We might have different opinions on what "value" means in this context...

Not entirely sure why you keep mentioning games either. If you're basing that on the promise of the new "spider" platform then that's silly, because it's not available yet.

If you have any benchmarks for an AMD vs Intel system using identical graphics hardware that shows AMD is a clear lead, I'd love to see it. Right now, though, it doesn't seem AMD is going to gain any ground on Intel this round.
=Smidge=

As far as games are concerned with processors, I agree that they are not a really good measure of performance. However, I must say that games, especially the newest ones, tend to push the capabilities of processors and video cards. So, games like Half-Life 2 are sometimes used to compare processing power. This is especially true among the hardcore gaming elite. I just like to think of it as the layman's way of understanding processing power. So, for gamers and the like, it is their version of a benchmark.

Err... as a hardcore gamer, I'm going to say:

Not quite.

The processor is usually one of the last things we consider when comparing gaming machines, granted some measure of power needs to be there. (i.e: Pentium 2s aren't going to allow you to play Unreal Tournament 3)

The graphics card and RAM are far, far more important to a gamer. Those, we use as benchmarks.

The only games that I know of that are extremely dependant on CPU processing power are Supreme Commander and Dwarf Fortress, and that's only because they simulate so much stuff that it kills the processor. But even then, RAM and graphic cards are more important since a 1gb increase in RAM usually increases game performance by some 100% but a change from single core to dual-core doesn't make that big of a deal (for gamers).

And besides, you can run HL2 on a 10 year old machine.

[Setherzam]

AMD has and probably will be my favorite processor

[ainsoph9]

Umiman, I agree with you for the most part, really. I must say though that a good graphics card and memory do not mean too much if the processor cannot handle it. So, if you have 2GB of memory, but your processor does not have the addressing capabilities to handle all of that memory, then you will have some problems. The same goes with the video card. So, basically, a system with lopsided components (too much RAM, etc. and too little processing power, etc.) may perform better in some ways, but it will also suck it up when it comes to the rest of its functions. This is why I always investigate what will happen to my computer if I do the supposed upgrade.

[Smidge204]

So, if you have 2GB of memory, but your processor does not have the addressing capabilities to handle all of that memory...

...then you're not even using a 16-bit system.

=Smidge=

[ainsoph9]

Doing the math (if I did it correctly), you would find that a 32-bit system could handle 2GB of memory. However, a 16-bit system and anything less than that lacks the addressing capabilities to handle 2GB of memory.