Intel vs AMD processors

[techidave]

Its been a while since I have built a computer with an AMD processor (Athlon XP 1800) and am not opposed to them.  But since I started using Intel CPUs on Intel motherboards, I have not had any problems with them and have been happy. 

But recently a friend purchased a computer with a Phenom CPU that is really fast.  So is it worth it to spend the extra $$ to get Intel when a comparable AMD processor would work just as well??

[Stoic Joker]

Years ago I avoided AMD because they lacked thermal protection. But they fixed that so I gave them another shot. Picked up one of the (first Dell AMDs) E521 with a 3800+ X2 Dual core (yada yadas). It's been running fine for 5+ years now so I can't complain about it a bit.

I do still to buy Intel (Habit), and I think the Intel sandybridge cores are still on top of the performance per $ contest. In a pinch I'd go AMD, but my comfort level is with Intel. Honestly ... It's a Chevy vs. Ford thing.

[Deozaan]

I asked a similar question earlier this year here on DC. My question was: What's better? More Cores or faster Ghz per core?

I was considering getting a 6 core AMD or a 4-core Intel. Pretty much everyone there told me that Intel CPUs are vastly superior to AMD CPUs.

In fact, AMD recently came out with an 8-core CPU and in most cases it performs worse than Intel's 4-core CPUs.

Sources for that claim:

Single threaded performance is my biggest concern, and compared to Sandy Bridge there's a good 40-50% advantage the i5 2500K enjoys over the FX-8150.

As a result, in certain applications the new Bulldozer is not just slower than competitors from Intel, but is even slower than the previous-generation Phenom II X6. And it means that AMD didn’t succeed in launching a revolutionary desktop CPU.

All signs point to Intel as being the current leader in processors.

f0dder said it best:

AMD's only selling point these days would be lower price.

[Carol Haynes]

I am running a Phenom II x6 and am very happy with it.

Not sure how the price vs. performance comapre in other countries but in the UK I find you get more bang fro the buck with AMD.

Intel Sandybridge i7-2600K Unlocked Core i7 Quad-Core Processor (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache, Socket 1155)  = £240
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Six-Core Processor - 3.30 GHz, 9MB Cache, Socket AM3, 125W, 3 Year Warranty, Retail Boxed = £186

Both prices are on Amazon.co.uk (and both a significantly reduced from list price) - that makes the i7 about 30% more expensive than the Phenom II.

You may get a little more speed out of it in some apps but whether it is worth an extra £54 is debatable and it really depends on what you actually want to do with the machine.

I haven't noticed the Phenom baulking at anything (OK I have 16Gb of memory so a pagefile is not really needed/used). For normal computing uses (photo and video editing in my case, office apps and games -  I also run more than one VM simultaneously in VMWare allocation a couple of cores to each and they run really smoothly) I haven't had any issues and my machine zips along. I suppose if you are doing a lot of heavy data maipulation (such as lots of large video file re-encoding) you may shave a few seconds off the time.

[f0dder]

I foresee AMD going out of the CPU business within long, if they don't change their act.

Their last few CPU releases have been extremely lackluster, and they've spewed out advertisement that's been so false I'd label it as lying. Check out Scalis posts on AMD, he's got the stuff pretty well covered.

In the past, at least the AMD CPUs were cheap - they didn't reach the performance levels of Intel CPUs, but the equivalently performing Intel CPU would be more expensive. With AMDs latest CPUs, they've priced it about the same as Intel's, but perform worse.

A shame, really, back in the initial AMD64 they whooped Intel's hineys... but then Intel introduced Core2, and the rest is history.

[Eóin]

I'm personally interested in their new range of APUs, the Fusion range. I've been reading a lot about OpenCL recently and they seem like a fascinating architecture to target. In particular because small form PCs built around them are relatively cheap.

I haven't heard much feedback about them though,

[f0dder]

Intel has on-CPU GPUs as well - not as powerful as the AMD/ATI ones, though... but if you're mainly going to play with it, and the CPU goes in your main system... well, I'd go for the more powerful CPU

[Eóin]

Intel's OpenCL implementation can't utilise the on-chip GPU. I believe I've read that their future integrated GPUs will be supported, but the current ones won't be.

[f0dder]

Intel's OpenCL implementation can't utilise the on-chip GPU. I believe I've read that their future integrated GPUs will be supported, but the current ones won't be.

So, write code for DirectCompute? (that should be supported... one of the gpgpu APIs definitely is, as there's transcoders utilizing the onchip gpu).

[JavaJones]

And as it happens, the i7 2600k is going to be about 30% faster than the Phenom II X6 1100T in many cases, so it kind of works out.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8150-zambezi-bulldozer-990fx,3043-12.html
Tasks that are heavily multithreaded like 3D rendering and media encoding (some) are a bit more equal, but the 2600k still wins out, despite having 2 fewer cores.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8150-zambezi-bulldozer-990fx,3043-15.html

- Oshyan

[Deozaan]

Pretty sad (for AMD) that the 4-core Intel Core i7 2600K is better than the 8-core Bulldozer in most of those benchmarks. That's not to mention that the 6-core Phenom II is often better than the Bulldozer. What were AMD thinking?

[f0dder]

Pretty sad (for AMD) that the 4-core Intel Core i7 2600K is better than the 8-core Bulldozer in most of those benchmarks. That's not to mention that the 6-core Phenom II is often better than the Bulldozer. What were AMD thinking?

Probably the engineers were all "fsck, fsck, fsck, we're never going to pull this off", and marketing went a little too creative. When is the last time anybody heard from John Fruehe?