AMD® Phenom™ II X6 and Intel® Core™ i7 Debate

[PhoenixUK]

So again its about 100 quid.

Is this premium worth it?

Does it need 10 pages?

To some the extra is.

To others its not.

Its that simple.

That's some progress there, I see you've moved from " You need to spend all money you can to get the best otherwise you won't even be able to run notepad on the cheaper AMD system " to " To some, the extra premium for performance is worth it BUT for some it's not ".

That's a huge improvement there hahaha.


Either way, I think that many of us forgot about one very important factor and got benchmark obsessed too much.

Everyone is too busy looking at every 1% decrease or increase on XYZ benchmark that we forget about the most important factor when buying new PC which is - "Will it run the stuff I want at the speed I need it to and will I be happy with the performance ? ".
Many probably sometimes won't notice the difference even it's as much as 20 or 30% simply because they're happy with that 20-30% slower machine and that's all they will ever ask for and there will be no problem at all but then they see a benchmark which shows that XYZ CPU is better than theirs by 5% in ABCD benchmark and that's how everything starts.


I get amazed with the amount of people spending weeks in order to get the best gear they can just because they "multitask " - having winamp, few tabs in firefox, download manager and photoshop open at same time ( which obviously needs 980X to run since it's such an intensive multitasking ). So then they spend massive amount of money just to get that setup which does 20% faster in benchmark regardless of the fact that for the past 5yrs they've been running a pentium 4 PC which is 5x slower than the which would be 20% slower from the one they want to splash money on.



The only advice I could give to anyone buying new gear is to ask yourself those 2 important questions:

- Will it do what I want it to at the speed I want ?
- Do I need it now ( Buy what you need now, not what you might need in 3yrs ).

 

[easyrider]

That's some progress there, I see you've moved from " You need to spend all money you can to get the best otherwise you won't even be able to run notepad on the cheaper AMD system " to " To some, the extra premium for performance is worth it BUT for some it's not ".

Ok for starters quote me where I ever said that?

What I did say is people want the fastest hardware for their money

Either way, I think that many of us forgot about one very important factor and got benchmark obsessed too much.

Everyone is too busy looking at every 1% decrease or increase on XYZ benchmark that we forget about the most important factor when buying new PC which is - "Will it run the stuff I want at the speed I need it to and will I be happy with the performance ? ".

Will I? Will you? How does one know unless they use the systems or at least get people to test them in the tasks they do.

I get amazed with the amount of people spending weeks in order to get the best gear they can just because they "multitask " - having winamp, few tabs in firefox, download manager and photoshop open at same time ( which obviously needs 980X to run since it's such an intensive multitasking ). So then they spend massive amount of money just to get that setup which does 20% faster in benchmark regardless of the fact that for the past 5yrs they've been running a pentium 4 PC which is 5x slower than the which would be 20% slower from the one they want to splash money on.

I spent £300 on my i7 920, 6gb and asus mobo. People use their PC's for more than what you state to highlight a very thin point.

Most enthusiast's upgrade once or twice a year and bringing in P4 users into this thread is BS and completely out of context.


EDIT: Your notion of multitasking highlights you lack of knowledge on PC hardware systems and software systems too.

 

[RizlaKing]

With every new client i start with two simple questions first one is the obvious "what is your budget" second is "what do you want it to do" with those two i can usually find out a bit about the client and they are the two most pertinent questions when building a system for someone.

 

[zoomee]

I'm not one to take digs at individuals - and I believe Big Wayne is the same - rather than getting involved in a one-sided debate where a person has already made they're mind up - its best to just ignore them.

BUT bloomin' eck Easyrider - can't you just get over it? - If you don't like this thread or are losing interest then STOP POSTING dude. Your beginning to sound like a broken record....... If proving your hardware is the best out there is all your after - this isn't the place.

I have at least four colleagues following this thread as they want help deciding on X6 v's i7-930. Now they use VM's and do some serious encoding so would see the benefits of 6 cores v's 4. I have a hex, my other colleague has an I7-920 hence all the info they can get is much appreciated.

I'd just like to thank Big Wayne on they're behalf.

 

[easyrider]

BUT bloomin' eck Easyrider - can't you just get over it? - If you don't like this thread or are losing interest then STOP POSTING dude. Your beginning to sound like a broken record....... If proving your hardware is the best out there is all your after - this isn't the place.

That's my point....I don't care about the hardware its just hardware...I have no emotional attachment to PCB's or capacitors.

What I do care is about is people knowing the facts and that i7 can be had for less than people think. Its also faster core by core the benchies back this up.

I have at least four colleagues following this thread as they want help deciding on X6 v's i7-930. Now they use VM's and do some serious encoding so would see the benefits of 6 cores v's 4. I have a hex, my other colleague has an I7-920 hence all the info they can get is much appreciated.

They would see benefits if the software is x6 optimised. Other than that i7 would yield faster results.They would also benefit from extra ram and bandwidth.

 

[wolvers]

So again its about 100 quid.

Is this premium worth it?

One hundred pounds is still, one hundred pounds.......... Not when the difference is one hundred and fifteen pounds it isn't

 

[zoomee]

"In our recent review of Gigabyte's P55A-UD4P, we indicated that Gigabyte's entire P55 lineup had PCIe lanes dedicated to supporting the onboard USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 Gb/s controllers, effectively limiting bandwidth to the graphics cards. Here's a quote from that review:

Two of the primary graphics card’s 16 PCIe lanes supply its USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 Gb/s controllers, and Gigabyte disables six more lanes to make the upper slot an effective x8 interface. The USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 Gb/s controllers revert to the chipset’s 2.5 GT/s lanes whenever two graphics cards are installed, to preserve the x8 transfers each graphics card needs for optimal CrossFire or SLI performance.

Thus, users with a single graphics card must sacrifice half of its peak bandwidth to enable 5.0 Gb transfers to the USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 Gb/s controllers, while those with two cards must live with 2.5 Gb/s bandwidth limits on USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 Gb/s controllers. Neither of these sacrifices is huge or even noticeable on most of today’s hardware, yet anyone trying to future-proof their system could be left cold.

Fortunately for AMD users, the GA-790FXTA-UD5 doesn't suffer from the same limitations because AMD's 790FX has a total of 48 PCIe lanes while the P55 chipset only has 16."

I don't know if this applies to the X58 chipset as it was a factor (back in march this year) as to why I also went 890

 

[Jokester]

X58 + ICH10 has 42 PCI-E lanes.

 

[MooMoo444]

This thread is just bordering on silly.

The i7 is clearly the better performance, it just costs more.

At the end of the day, do you have a bigger wallet or a bigger bill pile

 

[~>Dg<~]

short story is there about the same you save 100-115 quid by going amd. if you looking after your pounds then go with amd if you arnt that bothered about money then go with intel.

i dont get what the problem is.

 

[zoomee]

Why is it all those with i7's call this thread silly, boring etc etc? me guessing your afraid of the competition......

If its not to your liking don't post in it!!!!

They would see benefits if the software is x6 optimised. Other than that i7 would yield faster results.They would also benefit from extra ram and bandwidth.

Actually they are the ones disagreeing with this - stating the 6 cores would be much more useful to them than the extra memory / bandwidth. Nothing much in memory as i got 8Gb for £180 (2x4gb kits - each @ £90) in terms of price difference for twin v's triple channel.

They could assign 4 cores to VM's and leave two running for everyday work, as opposed to assigning 2 cores to VM's and leaving two available. For them they are actually looking at 6 core machines - and AMD wins outright as they're most expensive 6 core CPU is cheaper than the cheapest 6 core Intel CPU i.e. £230 v's £600.

Anyways - its an interesting read they say, whereas anyone who already has an i7 system here, says it isn't! lol

 

[james.miller]

are we still calling x6's mediocre?

 

[Strepsils]

This thread is just bordering on silly.

The i7 is clearly the better performance, it just costs more.

At the end of the day, do you have a bigger wallet or a bigger bill pile

 

[zoomee]

>CORRECTION EDIT<

 

[Big.Wayne]

[Off Topic]

Hey zoomee, "fanboy" is a frowned upon term now and the sooner it's wiped off these forums the better . . . . It's basically name calling and deemed a Pejorative . . .

 

[RizlaKing]

X6's are good cpu's and that and the launch of bulldozer next year have me thinking about going back to amd when i do my next upgrade would love a 12 or 16 core cpu just for the fun of playing with it more then anything else though it should be quite future proof as well .

 

[starry_night]

Performance vs. price debates are interesting enough, but they miss out the bigger picture; Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Saving £100 on the purchase price can be wiped out if you then overclock to the maximum very quickly. I would not knock performance vs. price, but anyone who then takes it as some sort of hard and fast rule for saving money is going to miss the bigger picture. Some sort of application that takes into account:

electricity costs per day on average
purchase cost
relative performance for a given use case
depreciation

would not be very difficult to develop. Me, I would rather not know.

 

[NathanE]

I would still go with the Intel system as in my experience the motherboards are far more stable and have better chipset drivers. This alone is why I always buy Intel.

If I couldn't afford that Intel chip then I would go with a slightly slower/cheaper one.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hello starry_night

Performance vs. price debates are interesting enough, but they miss out the bigger picture

Trust me, I'm not one to miss the "bigger picture"

Saving £100 on the purchase price can be wiped out if you then overclock to the maximum very quickly. I would not knock performance vs. price, but anyone who then takes it as some sort of hard and fast rule for saving money is going to miss the bigger picture.

Firstly, I hope you read the O.P? . . . secondly I wonder where this £100 figure keeps coming from? . . . Obviously I'm looking at approx £150 difference per system, over four systems that £600 big ones . . . . then as mentioned in the O.P I need to work out running costs . . . big picture!

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hello NathanE

I would still go with the Intel system as in my experience the motherboards are far more stable and have better chipset drivers

That interesting? . . . what is your experience with AMD® systems then? . . . are you suggesting the AMD® mobos are less stable or have inferior drivers per chance?

This alone is why I always buy Intel.

Obviousy I can't justify spending an extra £150 per system based on that! . . . I have not ever had a problem with either AMD® or Intel ® mobos . . . please expand on your negative experiences?

If I couldn't afford that Intel chip then I would go with a slightly slower/cheaper one.

I can afford it . . . can't work out if the premium is worth it yet!