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Is amd even a contender for mid/high end rigs now?

Nocky24

Nocky24

Nocky24

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The market seems to be entirely in intels favour with am3 looking like the unattractive option now i5 has settled down a bit. I see people spec'ing on forums mainly only i5/i7 now. Is it still worth going am3 anymore and is the six core amd cpu destined for the am3 socket or a different one?

I ask as i'd like an upgradable spec (new cpu in future), but haven't really got the money to go i7 and then consider an outrageously priced (so i've heard) 6 core as an upgrade somewhere down the line. 1156 although looking great looks limited to upgradability with 1366 taking the high end so am3 looks like a decent option still for this or is it?

Cheers
 
They are still a good option for those who don't want to overclock...

In the upper mid and high end markets they deffinatly don't look as good value for money as they did.

Fact is despite the reviews and mass grass roots campaigning by AMD - clock for clock they are really only comparable to the old 65nm Core 2 line and even struggle sometimes to keep up with that.
 
To be honest I would never recommend any platform on its "upgradability" in general it's rare that by the time you come to upgrade a better performing CPU in your current board is a viable option.
However that said, both AMD and intel have committed to selling 6 core CPUs on their current platforms (AM3 and Bloomfield).
As for current AMD vs current Intel, in mid to high ish range a price performance ratio (bang for buck) AMD probably still just about wins, although I bet its damn close. If you chose to compare clock for clock (not sure why it's really relevant) then Intel wins hands down. As for is AM3 worth considering, definitely yes. A high end AM3 CPU 955, 965 will trade blows with all but the very high end current Intel CPU's in most applications.
 
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To the average overclocker, there won't be much difference (£ for £).

For the extreme overclocker, there will be a big difference (£ for £).

For the benchmarker, there will be a big difference (£ for £).

For the average Joe, who buys 99% of processors (figure is fictional, based only on the number of people I know that have computers in relation to the number of people who overclock them), there will not be any difference at all.

So yes, AMD is still very much a contender. Added to the fact that Intel chipsets for multimedia PCs are ****, plain and simple.
 
My main rig is the one in my sig, i also have access to a i7 920 rig as well and must say i do not notice any difference between the two in normal gaming and daily use, but if you were just going on test scores you would probably find the i7 wins. On a personal note i find the AMD better to use, dont know why it just feels "better" if you know what i mean.
 
beefybarn said:
On a personal note i find the AMD better to use, dont know why it just feels "better" if you know what i mean.
Click to expand...

ah the old "it just feels better" thing. That, along with the "in games the Phenom feels smoother" are the only arguments I ever hear :/
 
The 940 was a fantastic overclocker. Since the 945 is basically that with a DDR3 memory controller... don't know what happened since then.
 
The only thing i would say is AMD's memory controller is excellent. But since using Intel for the past three builds since changing from AMD X2 series , Intel clearly have the power in there hands.

McT
 
I went with AMD, quite happy I did as I'm not bothered about outright power, I'm bothered about daily use, I don't play games very often but I do watch a lot of video and listen to music.

Probably a bit of an overkill then getting a 965BE and overclocking it to 3.8ghz, but never mind!

Still a proper contender for every day use from what I've heard, the i7 only really pulls ahead in benchmark type tests. (Or so I've heard).
 
For low end machine AMD are very much a contender, for those that want a low budget good value cpu. For high end, no. Quite simply the i7 (and even the i5) clearly pull ahead of the highest powered Phenoms, however the midrange is a bit harder to answer.

It doesn't help AMD that the 45nm of Intel's previous generation processors generally outperform their flagship processors so all they can do really is go for value or rely on AMD fans. Hopefully AMD will release a processor that challenges Intel's i7 at some point to bring prices down, but they haven't yet.

It's swings and roundabouts really, I've always gone Intel in the past, (since my Duron 700) because have you ever tried playing Red Alert 1 between both an AMD and an Intel based computer? They sometimes go out of sync, meaning they process some instructions differently (doesn't happen between an Intel + an Intel or an AMD + an AMD) so that makes me wonder what else may go out of sync when networking the two. That's why I just stick with one or the other. (Though most people don't play RA so it isn't an issue ;) )
 
amd low to mid

intel i7 for high end


like already said foe most users phenom rig will be fine for 99 percent of pc use.

if you do 24/7 benchmarking or photoshop allday as a job go i7.

tbh if most told you honest answer theres not much between any of the phenom or i7 rigs in daily average use.or anything u would say damn thats different.
 
gurusan said:
ah the old "it just feels better" thing. That, along with the "in games the Phenom feels smoother" are the only arguments I ever hear :/
Click to expand...

Yea, it used to make me laugh too, now, I am by no means giving any kind of real credence to such assertions. But, before I upgraded to an I5 (at 3.6GHz) set-up I used to have a Phenom II 940 BE (at stock 3GHz) both had/have 4GB of ram.

Now unsurprisingly when I upgraded to the Phenom II at the start of this year, I switched from a duel core C2D E6600 run at 3GHz, and I certainly found the Phenom II to be 'smoother' I could tell the difference between them in certain situations even when a quad wasn't much if any 'apparent' advantage over a duel core. I just put it down to an improvement in technology really, and the fact that I had twice as many cores as before.

Now interestingly, I have noticed, only really playing Supreme Commander though, a difference in the I5 and the PII, the PII was (I swear) smoother. I can't explain it really; the I5 is faster clock for clock let alone when it has a 600MHz advantage ...both chips have the same number of cores, neither has hyper threading. All I can conclude is, the cache setups are responsible for this, either that or I'm just imagining it (but I don't think so).

The I5 is a faster chip than my old PII, no doubt, in real usage I hardly notice the difference actually, but when I run benchmarks I certainly do. But for reasons I can't explain, in Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, the old PII certainly did offer a 'smoother' experience.

I don't think I would base a cpu purchase on this, I mean it's highly situational at best, and is usually considered to be a line touted by AMD die-hards clutching at straws. I'm not one of these people, I've sold the PII, I use an I5 now (I've never been a fan-boy type anyway) ...but yea, the PII, under certain circumstances was smoother, I'm pretty sure of that. Although I didn't believe it at all when I had one, but then I couldn't make a direct comparison to an Intel quad at the time.

I have noticed similar behaviour in Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 2 when things get intense, but not nearly so obvious as SC:FA, it's something on the edge on my hardware spidey sense there. I haven't noticed such behaviour when just plain multitasking, then again I don't do really heavy multitasking all that often, I do run 2 Eve clients simultaneously and a Skype webcam feed, that's about as heavy as my multitasking gets.

Take what I have said with a grain of salt, or 20 …but that is what I have experienced, having made the switch from the Phenom II to the I5 on release day.
 
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Superewza said:
If that's the case, why didn't you keep your 940?
Click to expand...

Because I wanted an I5, and I sold the 940 before I even got the I5 ...so I did not know, I knew what other people had said, I just didn't really believe it, since there was never any real evidence to suggest there was much to the whole 'smoothness' thing. I hardly regret changing anyway, I have a faster cpu now that uses less power at idle and modern DDR3 memory (my PIi setup was AM2+, so DDR2).

For the purposes of playing Supreme Commander Forged Alliance (which I do quite a bit really) and only that, I would rather have the PII back yes, otherwise, I'd take the I5 for anything else I have found. The I5 is perfectly fine in SC:FA though, using tools like 'Core-Maximizer' (a small app that helps manage the SC threads accross the cores better than it does by default) and changing the default AI you can smooth it out on most half decent cpu's. I hadn't used some of the tweak tools for it before on the PII, and had a better experience out of ther box, now after some tweaking it's fine on the I5, nice and smooth and nothing to complain about.

I did not expect to find what I did though, your millage may vary anyway.
 
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I'm still of the mind that performance/price, AMD is still very much worth it. I've got a 720BE x3 @ 3.5Ghz, and I'm pretty sure I could push it to 3.6, but I don't really need to... I have no real reason to want to go higher. I can play L4D at 4x AA and 8x AF perfectly smooth, and i recently bought Star Wars: KotOR on Steam, and I run that at 8x AA and 12xAF. I've had an AMD all the way from an Athlon XP 2000+, and I'd never change for the relatively small performance increase and the huge price increase.

The cheapest i5 is £150 ish, and the most expensive PII is the same price, almost exactly. i5 is stock 2.66, while the PII is 3.4. Can you get that i5 overclocked to 4GHz on air? Probably. If you also have an expensive motherboard, and good cooling. It's not just the price of the chip you have to take into account, its the motherboard as well. There's a £50 difference between the most expensive i5 board, and the most expensive AM3 board...

It's all down to budget. If you can afford an i7, then good for you. if not, then AMD is there to console you with a perfectly good chip for affordable prices.
 
This is why I'm still on 775. I can't afford i7 or i5, and there's not much point in going from 775 to AMD in my opinion....I'll just pick up a q9550 or q9505 in a month or 2 and clock it to 4ghz+ on air.
 
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