AMD 8350 vs I7 970 = ?

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I am a bit iffy on this one.

I have both

The I7 is the 970 3.2Ghz 6 Core with HT obviously makes 12 Logical
I have 6 sticks of GSkill RAM and its in a Saphire PureBlack X58 Mobo. Using 24GB of GSKill RAM

The AMD is the 8350 and of course its an 8 core but at 4.0Ghz
Its in an Asus SabreTooth 990FX Mobo with 16GB of Mushkin Blackline

What is the better setup and why?

I game, sure I game, but they both do the exact same performance in gaming.

I do a lot of video coding work, and annoyingly, most of the time, when I try converting a video from X to Y, the cores never get used up to their full potential on the Intel and they do on the AMD.

The AMD is currently in the case right now, the Intel in the hallway where I am deciding which one will be my Server and wich will be my main PC.

I just cannot decide.
 
Wow, those results are interesting.

I think that I also need to add another couple of notes.

Firstly, in that they both do XFIRE but the AMD does SLI too!
I will also say at this moment, that I have a nice pair of ATI 7770 Vapour X cards running in the AMD and I also have a spare pair of GTX 470 Cards that I was running in it for a bit too.

The Intel will run XFire with these cards and I did it for a bit to have a play, however the gap between the slots was only just enough to wedge the bottom card in, and therefore the top card's fans were clearly not getting enough air to them surely?

I decided to not bother with xfire on the Intel.

That said, I have a gammy left hand now and gaming has become a real problem and so I dont in truth actually need SLI or XFire.

Similarly those results show the AMD to be just that little bit behind in a lot of the tests, however, thats at stock, and since this AMD while I have hit 4.7 with seemingly reliable results, it will just plop to 4.3 automatically and so that tiny bit of a boost closes the gap even more. The Intel as I said, I have failed to clock at all over stock.

Now even in saying that, the Intel is definitely that touch quicker it seems?
Given that I also have loads more RAM, then surely I will be better off going back to the Intel?

One other small thought, is that AMDs 9590 CPU is available for pennies...

Hell Im still undecided ... How much of a knob am I?

I think I may go with the intel until I buy a new AMD CPU.

Thanks.
 
Both chips should be close, i would put the low power one(i7) in a server, it also as HT so will be better for doing lots of small tasks

Match the AMD with a few AMD GPU's. my old set up 6100 and 2x7970 run all my games as max setting no problem.
 
Surprised you've not had any luck overclocking the i7

Me too, considering the Mobo is a fantastic one and while I have to admit, I have never heard of that particular one, its great in so many ways.

But yes, why can I not clock it? I seriously dont know? If I do amnything non stock, I have to reset the BIOS. I just gave up and left it as 3.2Ghz.

Annoyed, so anyone offer anything that I may be missing... My ears are all yours!

Both chips should be close, i would put the low power one(i7) in a server, it also as HT so will be better for doing lots of small tasks

Match the AMD with a few AMD GPU's. my old set up 6100 and 2x7970 run all my games as max setting no problem.

You know... A few years ago, when my Barton 3200 was my baby, I was fully able to FAH 24/7 and I had 3 DVD Drives that were happy to burn 3 disks at once from various HDs, I could also defrag all my disks, as well as play UnReal Tournament 2004 with no noticeable lag.

Now, the PC should be 10 times more powerful, but can it do 10 times more?

I stopped doing any Folding when I moved from my old I7 to the 8130 I think it was, and I have not bothered since, but I think my daughters I5 still plops it out. Dunno how this AMD will do it, but I found the I7 never batted an eyelid but the AMD was certainly noticing it????

Other than that, I like doing lots of silly stuff... I do a lot of vide owork for our local ghst hunting club and so I am always converting AVI or WMV of MPG into one form or another and then plopping them all into a DVD and then burning multiple disks and while I am doing that, Im playing games etc but to be fair, even though I have never actually doen a real long term head to head of them, the one glaring that that has always been immediately noticeable is that the I7 hardly seems to be using its CPU at all for any tasks, and the AMD does.

This then makes me feel that if I could only find out why this is, that the I7 should therefore be in theory at least, a whole load faster than it is being right now?

I also have one of those feelings that the reason the I7 is unable to go much faster, is that the data gettign to it, can only go at speed X and so thats why it seems to be starign into thin air most of the time.
 
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