CPU's, AMD and Intel

[Majestic]

Well this was touched briefly in other threads previously and I thought I would make this an official topic.

I'll put my thoughts down on this topic here just to start off, feel free to post your experience, views and opinions.

I'd take an AMD over an Intel anyday, when looking for PC's as soon as I see a PC with the Intel logo on it I turn away. While it's true Intel is a little faster, AMD has a lot better cooling and overall performance. An example of this is we had two laptops, an AMD one that was about 2 years old and used heavily and an Intel that was like 6 months old. Both had identical specs however the Intel one kept overheating playing STO but the AMD one didn't. I used to run Intel myself and with the amount i use my PC's I could only get a solid two years out of them, yet with the AMD's I have been running this PC even more and have gotten about twice that life out if and apart from some small performance issues that could just be my install or one a HD on it's way out I haven't had any issues whatsoever.

 

[Rifraf]

I guess I can't really speak much to this subject. I've always used Intel as I viewed AMD to be slower, less efficient and always one step behind. When you say AMD has better cooling do you just mean the chip doesn't run as hot?

I'm curious if you only run laptops Majestic or do you have/have you had desktops as well? I've never owned a laptop myself.

 

[Majestic]

I guess I can't really speak much to this subject. I've always used Intel as I viewed AMD to be slower, less efficient and always one step behind. When you say AMD has better cooling do you just mean the chip doesn't run as hot?

When IBM back in the early 90's I think it was (need to check) were ordered to share their tech, AMD bought the rights to the cooling systems. AMD cooling systems are superior to the Intel ones and as a whole last longer and run much cooler than an equivalent Intel one. When you look at any machine the cooler it runs the longer it will last and so Intel might be slightly faster but they do run a lot hotter thus their lifespan is not as long and the hotter it runs the less efficient it is.

So if you put those factors into consideration both an AMD and an Intel are on par in speed and performance (intel higher spec but slow down more at higher temps and AMD slightly slower but more cooling) except an AMD will out last an Intel and be more efficient. In fact Intel might dominate the new PC market, however AMD is a better alternative especially for gamers who want to run high end games which do cause a PC to run hotter than a facebook junkie or a novelist who mainly only uses a word processor.

I used to be an Intel only man until I met Kat and she opened my eyes. I had a 2 year old Intel at the time (both desktops) and she had a much older AMD and her PC would run better and cooler than my Intel not to mention it lasted probably a good 2-3 years longer than mine did.

I'm curious if you only run laptops Majestic or do you have/have you had desktops as well? I've never owned a laptop myself.

I'm actually a desktop man myself, I don't personally own a laptop at least not yet. I've had both Intel and AMD and AMD are far superior especially for a gamer or modeler, especially if you want a computer that will last long-term or at least you want to get as much life out of the PC as possible without needing to replace parts other than the occasional HD which to be honest do end up dying no matter what system you run.

 

[Katala]

I guess I can't really speak much to this subject. I've always used Intel as I viewed AMD to be slower, less efficient and always one step behind. When you say AMD has better cooling do you just mean the chip doesn't run as hot?

I'm curious if you only run laptops Majestic or do you have/have you had desktops as well? I've never owned a laptop myself.

When Maj and I first got together, he had an Intel, with higher specs etc than my pc and I had an AMD, my pc kicked butt all over Maj's Intel, never overheated like his did etc, actually we ended up using his as a heater in the end haha and not to mention the darn thing sounded like a jet plane taking off! Maj is currently using my PC and has been for a couple of years now which is why I am using a laptop, I just havent gotten around to building him a new one because he doesnt like his old one since mine is way better! But as he has pointed out, my laptop is an AMD, my sons is an Intel, he used a cooling pad, normal fan on the side and it still overheated every time we played STO where as mine didnt use anything for extra cooling and ran STO perfectly with no issues... Intel may be a bit faster overall but AMD lasts longer and runs much cooler.

 

[CABAL]

See, I've never had any problems with my Intels. They've never over heated and any system noise has always been due to fans that needed to be cleaned or hard drives that needed to be replaced. The only one that ever died was one I got second hand so I don't know what kind of abuse it may have taken before. That was really too bad considering it was a 3.2ghz and I still don't have much in the way of multi-threaded games.

I have noticed while browsing online a couple differences that haven't been noted here. AMD CPUs have higher average clock speeds than Intel CPUs. I'm assuming that's probably to make up for the aforementioned performance difference. However, AMDs also average more cores. Eight core AMD processors are pretty easy to find, but six core Intel processors are pretty rare. From that, it looks like AMD wins out on the high end multi-threading.

On the other hand, AMD motherboards seem to be a generation behind in several techs. They just recently got PCI Express 3.0 which Intel has had for years and I don't see one with the latest DDR3 version. AMD motherboards that support SLI are pretty rare, too, so you have less options if you want to use Nvidia's SLI feature.

 

[Katala]

I don't see one with the latest DDR3 version.

Actually when I was looking up motherboards for Majs PC upgrade every motherboard I found to suit his high spec cpu (he is very particular to have the high end ones) had this so maybe it varies by country?

 

[CABAL]

Actually when I was looking up motherboards for Majs PC upgrade every motherboard I found to suit his high spec cpu (he is very particular to have the high end ones) had this so maybe it varies by country?

It could just be the sites I use. I see them up to DDR3 2133 for AMD but DDR3 2400 for Intel.

 

[Rifraf]

I am with Cabal in that I never had any issues with Intel, so just never bothered to look past figures on paper in regards to AMD.

I don't know if this should be broken out in its own thread, but since it's regarding CPU's are you all running dual, quad, hex or oct? cores? I know for certain task one type would be better than the other, but for general gaming dual would be the standard and perhaps up to quad core?

 

[Terradyhne]

Well this was touched briefly in other threads previously and I thought I would make this an official topic.

I'll put my thoughts down on this topic here just to start off, feel free to post your experience, views and opinions.

I'd take an AMD over an Intel anyday, when looking for PC's as soon as I see a PC with the Intel logo on it I turn away. While it's true Intel is a little faster, AMD has a lot better cooling and overall performance. An example of this is we had two laptops, an AMD one that was about 2 years old and used heavily and an Intel that was like 6 months old. Both had identical specs however the Intel one kept overheating playing STO but the AMD one didn't. I used to run Intel myself and with the amount i use my PC's I could only get a solid two years out of them, yet with the AMD's I have been running this PC even more and have gotten about twice that life out if and apart from some small performance issues that could just be my install or one a HD on it's way out I haven't had any issues whatsoever.

As i have a PC and elektronics worker in the circle of friends of mine and with having build all my PC's by myself, i tend to say i had a different experience the last eight years. the years before i only bought AMD CPU's and must say i had not much problems, till i got the Athlon XP 4800+ X2, this CPU was always on the brink to overheating at normal summer temperature of 30°C and in a big case with good cooling, even without overclocking. My last two Intel CPU's (Core two duo and Core I7 860) and the Core I7 3770k i use now are working fine at the same Temperature. i have even seen some other newer Core I7's working fine at 35°C with the boxed cooler and my before mentioned friend has the direct comparison as building PC's is his job and he tends to prefer Intel. Intel is less energy consuming than AMD and the Radeons are even more energy wasting since they are produced by AMD. I think AMD is good for Server systems and lower budget PC's, but this is just my belief and i don't want to force it upon anyone.

 

[CABAL]

I don't know if this should be broken out in its own thread, but since it's regarding CPU's are you all running dual, quad, hex or oct? cores? I know for certain task one type would be better than the other, but for general gaming dual would be the standard and perhaps up to quad core?

I have an Intel Core 2 Duo at 2.33GHz. It's not actually much of an improvement for the games I run over my old 2.24GHz single core since most of them are old and not multi-threaded.

As a general rule, for programs that aren't multi-threaded, such as anything made before dual cores were introduced, the power of the individual cores is most important. A single threaded game can only make use of one core so that core needs to be up to the task. Core affinity can make sure it gets a core to itself rather than sharing it with background tasks, but multiple cores still won't help it very much.

Newer programs can be all over the map. Office programs still are usually single-threaded, but new games tend to be multi-threaded and will only run with multi-core processors, whether that makes sense or not. I have seriously seen games little more complex than Pac-Man or Tetris that required a 1.3GHz dual core. Complex and processor heavy components (like advanced AI or realistic physics) using their own cores when possible makes sense and can greatly optimize performance. Arcade style games with simplistic AI and no physics could probably run just fine on a single core with a bit of optimization but tend to be designed explicitly for multi-cores anyway. Media editing software, especially video editing software, tends to be very processor intensive and have been almost exclusively multi-threaded for a long time. For media editing, you generally want as many cores as possible with as much power as possible and as much RAM as possible. Media playback, on the other hand, works just fine with a single core of average or low power. Newer games also benefit from more cores, but most of them probably aren't running enough threads to make using six or eight cores very useful, with four being plenty for most games.

So... media center PCs and office PCs should be fine with one core, gaming systems should probably have two at a minimum and probably don't need more than six, and video editing systems would need as many as possible. Sounds to me so far that Intel may be better for older games with its more efficient cores, AMD for media editing with lots of cores, and still seems hard to say for modern games.

 

[Rifraf]

Nice breakdown. I use a Core 2 Duo 3.0Ghz myself so not that far above yours. I built my system in 2009 so it's been running strong ever since. I toyed with upgrading to the highest dual core which I think is 3.4, but wasn't really worth it. I started that thread about overclocking a month or so back, but didn't pursue it as I didn't want to risk prematurely damaging my proc.

The motherboard I have now is only upgradable to a quadcore and I never thought that was worth it either for just the games I play either.

 

[Hellkite]

I have my personal Desktop

Processor: AMD FX-Series Six-Core FX-6300 3.5 GHz; 32GB DDR3 Ballistix SDRAM

and what Serra has

i7-4790 processor quad-core [3.6GHz, 8MB Shared Cache] : 32GB DDR3

(Both ate Liquid cooled and have 2 GeForce GT640 cards)

Given I have both CPU in house

I can tell you is a difference in the two systems

the AMD is faster on running games and Simulations Six-Core advantage

Were the Intel is Faster at Video editing given its 8MB Shared Cache


My opinion

Intel is winning the single threaded performance race no question on that . but AMD clearly gives you more real cores for your money. For Under $200 you can get 8 cores of processing power that can be tweaked and overclocked to give you quite a bit of bang for your buck

So it real is a question on your how much cash you going to spend and what your going to do with your PC ,both are great CPU

 

[Majestic]

I don't know if this should be broken out in its own thread, but since it's regarding CPU's are you all running dual, quad, hex or oct? cores? I know for certain task one type would be better than the other, but for general gaming dual would be the standard and perhaps up to quad core?

I have used dual core Intels in the past but have been using dual core AMD's in more recent years. I am hoping to upgrade soon to at least a six core AMD.

As i have a PC and elektronics worker in the circle of friends of mine and with having build all my PC's by myself, i tend to say i had a different experience the last eight years. the years before i only bought AMD CPU's and must say i had not much problems, till i got the Athlon XP 4800+ X2, this CPU was always on the brink to overheating at normal summer temperature of 30°C and in a big case with good cooling, even without overclocking. My last two Intel CPU's (Core two duo and Core I7 860) and the Core I7 3770k i use now are working fine at the same Temperature. i have even seen some other newer Core I7's working fine at 35°C with the boxed cooler and my before mentioned friend has the direct comparison as building PC's is his job and he tends to prefer Intel. Intel is less energy consuming than AMD and the Radeons are even more energy wasting since they are produced by AMD. I think AMD is good for Server systems and lower budget PC's, but this is just my belief and i don't want to force it upon anyone.

I won't force my opinions or experience on anyone either, we all have our preferences and experiences.

My AMD's run at over 40°C I have gotten them as high as 50°C without an issue, though that was in summer and I never like running them about 45°C it's not good for the PC no matter what CPU brand you use. But I am comfortable at 40°C and don't get an issues.

I have been into PC's most my life, my old man is a server admin for an international company and does all of Australia, Kat has been building PC's since the early 2000's and our experience with Intel isn't good. That's why we always recommend AMD. Others obviously have no issues with Intel which is fine, you always should go with what you think is best and most comfortable with it's like cars, I've had Hyundai, Daihatsu, Holden, Mitsubishi and Nissian (x4) and I can tell you that I've had trouble with them all except the Nissian, some swear by Holden others by Ford and so on. We all have our preferences but I'll never drive anything but a Nissian again, same with PC's I will only have a AMD.

My opinion

Intel is winning the single threaded performance race no question on that . but AMD clearly gives you more real cores for your money. For Under $200 you can get 8 cores of processing power that can be tweaked and overclocked to give you quite a bit of bang for your buck

So it real is a question on your how much cash you going to spend and what your going to do with your PC ,both are great CPU

This is exactly right, it's what you need the PC for that really matters. I've said in the past a Facebook junkie doesn't need a multicore gaming pc anymore than a non-gaming pc is any use to a gamer or game designer.

I'd still recommend a AMD to any gamer.

 

[Katala]

I have used dual core Intels in the past but have been using dual core AMD's in more recent years. I am hoping to upgrade soon to at least a six core AMD.

Right now, on my PC that you are currently using, its a quad core

My AMD's run at over 40°C I have gotten them as high as 50°C without an issue, though that was in summer and I never like running them about 45°C it's not good for the PC no matter what CPU brand you use. But I am comfortable at 40°C and don't get an issues.

Don't forget we also have extreme heat in summer too which reaches between 40C-55C degrees out here, which is 104F-131F for those using F instead of C.