Age old debate....Intel vs AMD

[Trowabarton756]

Just thought I'd grab your guys opinions. For me intel wins for simple things like word processing and just overall basic stuff like what most people use. But out of all the dual cores in the market, I prefer AMD, for gaming at least. I dual-box on one PC with a AMD 64x2 4000+ and Im waiting on a AMD 64x2 4800+ from newegg that I ordered today, and from what I can tell it beats out the intels in the same speed market. So Opinions, concerns, bench marking that I could look at that would disprove that Intel > Amd not just for WoW but for any game period.

[Oswyn]

Any processor available today is more than enough for basic applications like word processing. Intel has the performance crown for most benchmarks right now, but AMD is very competitive. This year you will see a little back and forth advantage between the two companies for desktop. For gaming, the focus really will be on the video card side. AMD will be kicking some butt this year. They already have a good start with the 3870 X2. Yes it is two gpus on one card, but it is the best performing single card available. nVidia is having trouble with their 2GPU card. When they do get it out, you'll probably see similar performances.

Intel will be integrating their memory controller soon and will also use a hypertransport like technology to get rid of their front side bus which has been hindering them. It will be interesting to see if they will continue with the large cache sizes which were required to get around the bottleneck.

Overall, it is good for the consumer to have both Intel and AMD in the market. They both drive each other to come out with new technologies faster. The competition also brings down prices. Imagine if Intel was the only player out there in the cpu space. We probably wouldn't even have any dual cores yet!

Both companies make good, viable products. The diference really is the approach. AMD is more customer centric. Intel is the 800lb gorilla that uses its brute force to influence the market (Itanium anyone?). I personally don't like companies like that.

[Eteocles]

I've had better experiences with AMD than Intel, and AMD hasn't let me down yet, so my opinion goes for them ;p

[Oswyn]

Oh i should mention that I work for AMD, but I tried to be as unbiased as possible

[zanthor]

For dual boxing INTEL absolutely smokes the currently available AMD products on the market. I have an AMD X2 5600 and 6000 and have personally built a system for a friend with an X2 6400... video cards including the 7600gt, 8600gt, 7900gt, 8800gt, and 8800gts and I'm simply not impressed with the performance of these systems.

They run ONE copy of the game just fine, on my system (obviously the most experience) I can run 3 copies of WoW and fraps without a problem, I can run 4 copies reasonably well but my sound goes to shit on copy # 5... looking at the quad core processors available I'm not impressed with AMD's selection...

A guildmate has an Intel system that he built dollar for dollar equal to mine, same video card, both of us have 4gb of ram, and all said and done he gets generally double my framerates. After doing some research it appears that the intel dual core architecture is greatly superior when dealing with larger quantities of data... without getting too technical (Since I'm just a geek not an engineer) it seems to be a larger bandwidth between the cores on teh intels that leads to this performance gain.

Saddly AMD is behind teh power curve right now, competition is a VERY good thing and I'm hopeful that they will drop the bomb soon and come out with something shiney and new as I'm sure you guys can tell I'm an AMD fan as well.

Current systems operating in my home:
AMD X26000, 8800gt, 4gb ddr2
AMD X25600, 7600gt, 2gb ddr2 (I really should put the 7900gt in this but my girlfriend probably wouldn't appreciate the difference )
AMD Athlon 2400+, 2gb ddr (this is my DVR machine, but used to be my gaming box)

Add two more AMD X2 systems that I've built for friends recently... an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ that I built from my spare parts for a friend...
But yea, the sad fact is right this moment, if you want the best dual box experience possible, go Intel.

(Disclaimer: I should clarify, for dual boxing I don't think it's an issue, once you stretch for Quin boxing it becomes an issue)

[pinotnoir]

Intel is kicking amd's ass right now. The new phenoms suck vs intels chips. I have both amd and intel. Intel is pretty sweet right now so I wouldnt buy an amd anytime soon.

[kermitforney]

It all really depends on your price point although the performance gap is wider than it has been in quite some time. If you only have a few bucks to spend (low range) then I would advise you to go AMD as there CPU's are priced more aggressively due to there higher end parts performing in Intel's medium range parts. If you need anything from mid-range to high end then I would highly suggest you go with an Intel CPU, anything Presler would suffice. AMD has really dropped the ball recently with there handling of their Errata issue vs. Intel's handling of the same issue and the Phenom (tri-core) debacle , etc., etc. They just can't seem to catch up and stay at pace with Intel. Seems that Mr. Ottelini (Intel CEO) knows his stuff and the new tick-tock model for product release is a beast!!! Side Note: For Oswyn, the Itanium was a failure to put it lightly so maybe you should dig up another more relevant example of Intel's brute force or maybe it's brute force through flawless execution?!?

Ex. Tick Tock Model - Intel will release a new CPU architecture every 2 years, during the gap in the 2 years they will apply a die shrink to the architecture before a new architecture is released.

2006 - Core Architecture
2007 - Core Architecture Die Shrink aka - Penryn
2008 - Nehalem Architecture
2009 - Nehalem Architecture Die Shrink aka - Nehalemc

[Ughmahedhurtz]

The AMD vs Intel battle has been going on for years. Originally, gamers were almost all AMD fans because there was an implementation tweak that made AMD+NVidia run quite a bit faster in D3D rendering than Intel+NVidia. That, and AMDs were almost always 10-20% cheaper for a similar CPU in terms of performance.

Conversely, intel has ruled the business market for years because their chips (aside from those nasty y2k-ish bugs) Just Work(tm). This has proven itself in the years I worked in software QA at Compaq (and then HP) and it's still true today if you talk to people in the program teams at major OEMs. Intel has also had a better "package" or bundled hardware offering for businesses in their Centrino line and some of their very solid managed systems.

The shorter version, though, is that you can get good experiences from either as long as you have the knowledge to purchase components that are known to work well together and can google well enough to find the quality drivers for your hardware. It isn't trivial. Which is why most consumers do not build whitebox PCs like many of us here on these forums.

If you look at the performance numbers lately, it's really still an "It Depends" answer. The price ranges for CPUs (even for just quad-cores) are all over the map, from ~$200 up to over $1100. Performance differences are noticeable for games and do tend to favor Intel's high-end CPUs almost exclusively, but you won't see any particular model drop so far out of the bottom of the range as to become unplayable.

Power consumption becomes another issue depending on your setup and what you want out of it.

Tom's Hardware and HardOCP both have some interesting reviews this year of the differences between the dual and quad core offerings from both. It's a fair amount of reading but very well worth it. Here's a few links to get you started:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?...50aHVzaWFzdA==

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_20...=882&chart=421

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/09/...ium_dual_core/

[Bollwerk]

Currently, Intel Core 2 duo procs are faster in most applications and games than AMD procs, but AMDs are less expensive. Both work fine, but anyone who tries to tell you AMD is faster than Intel for most things is smoking the crack pipe. =)

If you want proof, check sites like Tom's Hardware, Anandtech or other similar places.

P.S. I've bought many Intel and AMD procs over the years, so I don't really care which one is faster. I just buy what is best at the time. (AMD procs were king til Intel came out with the Core 2 line)

[Oswyn]

Oswyn[/url], the Itanium was a failure to put it lightly so maybe you should dig up another more relevant example of Intel's brute force or maybe it's brute force through flawless execution?!?

ROFL - I typed up some examples, but I'm so paranoid I decided not to post it. There is currently an antitrust lawsuit pending and I just don't want to get in trouble. Whatever the outcome may be, it will benefit all consumers in the long run.

One thing to note is that the majority of the volume in cpus is not at the high end. Yes, Intel currently holds the performance crown and probably will continue to do so for some time. The two companies will always (well I hope always) go back and forth in performance or even technilogical leadership. But for the most part, AMD strives for the best price/performance ratio. In other words, if you pick a certain price point, generally AMD will have a competitive if not slight better performing part. This applies to video cards as well (heck we just released a kick ass chipset with the best integrated graphics ever for those on a budget!).

In general, gamers really do have an impact on innovation. At a consumer level, they are the ones that strive for the latest and greatest products and will push performance to the limits. This drives both companies to deliver the best products available at the best prices.

With all that said, I want to remain employed. So please buy AMD!

Oh btw, completely off topic, but I hit 30 last night with my pally and 4 shammies!!! New to this whole multiboxing thing, I'm so excited...and I just can't hide it. In fact, I'm about to lose control and I think I like it.