AMD or Intel

[Scotty-D]

I am currently building a new system from the ground up but I am unsure of what CPU is best. Can anyone advise me of the difference between AMD and Intel based systems?

 

[PhoenixUK]

Depends on what are you going to use the PC for.

Atm Intel provides slightly better performance (depending on task) but at a slight price premium as well and AMD is bit slower ( again depending on task ) but usually cheaper.

Would be best if you post your full budget, what will you need the pc for and what's your current spec.

 

[franco_22]

AMD - best bang for your buck
Intel - Slightly better performance increase which you probably won't use.

My opinion in worse to best order.

AMD Athlon 630 - buy an am3 board like the gigabyte UD2H 880 so you have the option to upgrade to a hexacore in the future if you need, this is by far the cheapest/best bang for buck setup you can get. It's a Quad Core and even thou it doesn't have the L3 cache of an i3, 2 cores > l3 cache, specially as more and more games/applications are designed to support quads.

Amd Phenom 955- the big brother of the Athlon, quad core with large l3 cache, better then the i3 and very good overclockers (although not as easy as the intel i series) but still good enough. Again with this route, you can get an AM3 board and in the future upgrade.

Intel i5 - better then the phenom but more expensive, the slight performance increase isn't worth the extra cash in my opinion (depends how flush you are). The 1156 socket is pretty much dead as well so you have no option of upgrading, very good overclocker and probably the favourite in this forum.

Phenom 1055t - the big brother of the 955? Affordable hexacore, great for encoding and cpu intensive tasks, good overclocker but not as good as the i5 or i7, now you're getting to the high end processors, slightly more expensive then the i5 but the 2 extra cores are worth it if you run cpu intensive tasks.

Phenom 1090t - the big brother of the 1055t, best AMD cpu in the market at the moment.

Intel i7 - the king of the consumer market cpu, great overclocker, nothing comes close to stressing it, best performance, most expensive and guaranteed bragging rights with all your friends. You also get access to triple channel memory and some really expensive motherboards. Is it worth getting? If you got the cash hell yes, but it can easily set you back an extra £200 compared to an i5 or phenom so unless you want something that will definitely last you years then no it's not worth it.


This thread is basically a bait for AMD/Intel fan boys, I provided you my opinion but for sure I'm going to be shot down by other people and others might agree with me.

To answear your question the i7 is the best but obviously the most expensive.

 

[wannabedamned]

Gaming
I5 760 > 1055t and yes 1090t, and even I7

Encoding\editing
I7 930\950 > 1055t

Obvious hex optimisation reshuffles the deck at times. But majority of programs Ive found the above to be true.

Btw, All the processors have fantastic overclocking potential, and a 1055t although I consider it the budget processor compared to the I7/i5 offerings will eat most applications for breakfast.

Its really a case of do you want the task done awesomely fast? Or faster than awesomely fast

 

[PhoenixUK]

To answear your question the i7 is the best but obviously the most expensive.

Depends on the use , before we know that, all other info is irrelevant.

 

[Scotty-D]

I have around £2000 for the full setup. You guys have some very helpful advice on here thanks.

 

[Scotty-D]

I forgot to mention that i will be using the system for sound editing with Cubase.

 

[wannabedamned]

What version of cubase? and would you consider the machine a music production machine first and foremost? Any gaming?

 

[franco_22]

Depends on the use , before we know that, all other info is irrelevant.

yes the i5 has the edge on the phenoms when gaming, but by what, 2-10 fps in most games?

Is 2-10 fps worth taking a dead socket, paying £50-£100 more (when you factor in motherboard price)?

Wasn't there rumours that AMD said they are keeping backwards compatibility for their new processors? Buy a cheap phenom or athlon now and later you could upgrade it to a Bulldozer processor. Or just do it simply to save some cash (enough money to spend on a better GPU or an SSD).

Like I said again, if you feeling flush go intel if you just want the best bang for your buck then go AMD.

Also the x6 is faster for everything else apart from gaming and it's a wise investment as a couple of years from now, when hexacores become mainstream they will out perform the i5 even more.

The i5 is simply a bad idea right now, atleast wait until sandybridge.

 

[Scotty-D]

What version of cubase? and would you consider the machine a music production machine first and foremost? Any gaming?

Cubase 5.5 and i will not be gaming on the machine at all i have a Playstation 3 for that.

 

[franco_22]

I have around £2000 for the full setup. You guys have some very helpful advice on here thanks.

For that money and purpose I would go for an i7 rig. If this was a gaming set up thou I would still advise AMD and spending the extra money on Crossfire GPU. But then again with £2000 you not going to be short on performance for anything you do

 

[wannabedamned]

Cubase 5.5 and i will not be gaming on the machine at all i have a Playstation 3 for that.

Good stuff, You wont need to spend anywhere near £2000.

Cubase 5.5 support above 4 cores, So a hex core would show benefits for you.

So a nice AMD 1050t or 1090t setup, Plenty of Ram and storage space, SSD OS drive, Good motherboard and sound card and you my friend will be laughing!

Unfortunately I havent the time to look up hardware for a proper spec and cost. But atleast 6gb Ram! the more the better though. I have to sleep now, early morning =)

 

[PhoenixUK]

Seems like Cubase 5.5 can use more than 4 cores so either an i7 930 or phenomII X6 1055T or 1090T.

No need for an expensive motherboard, something cheap will be fine, I'd grab a large SSD (or even a few for working on the files ), then a separate 1-2TB drive or few depending on the need for storage.

Grab a nice quiet full tower case if you got room for it, good proper sound card too.

Graphic card is irrelevant as you're not going to be gaming, I'd say something like the passive 5550 will be perfect and you can run up to 3monitors from it as well.

Definitely grab at least 2 large 24"-26" monitors as you want a lot of work space when working with music.

I don't think you can spend 2000 on it, well, you can grab 980X or some 300GB SSD but it will be stupid to do as there are new CPUs coming next year and pretty much anything above i7 930 or 1055/1090T will be silly expensive and pointless to buy ( Unless you really need all that extra power right now ).

So to sum up:

i7 930 + mobo + mem = ¬430 / 1055T + mobo + mem = ¬280
SSD = 150 for 90gb
HDD = ¬45 per 1TB
Sound card = 60 to 180 ( for professional music might want the 100+ ones )
GPU = 50
Monitors = around 120 for 22", ¬160 for 24", 240-250 for 27", preferably 2 at least.

Good case = ¬70-80 - 200
Cooling = 40+
PSU = ¬60-70
------------------------------------------------------
Total = Starts from about 950-1000 for dual monitors setup with nice case, good cooling and fast large SSD and x6 1055T, up to whatever depending on your needs but I'd say this is already a beast setup and you probably won't need anything more ( apart from stuff like larger monitor or more storage or better sound card - CPU wise it has plenty of power ).

 

[Scotty-D]

Good stuff, You wont need to spend anywhere near £2000.

Cubase 5.5 support above 4 cores, So a hex core would show benefits for you.

So a nice AMD 1050t or 1090t setup, Plenty of Ram and storage space, SSD OS drive, Good motherboard and sound card and you my friend will be laughing!

Unfortunately I havent the time to look up hardware for a proper spec and cost. But atleast 6gb Ram! the more the better though. I have to sleep now, early morning =)

Thanks for the advice. I was looking at the AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1090T Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) and thought the price was pretty good.

 

[Scotty-D]

Seems like Cubase 5.5 can use more than 4 cores so either an i7 930 or phenomII X6 1055T or 1090T.

No need for an expensive motherboard, something cheap will be fine, I'd grab a large SSD (or even a few for working on the files ), then a separate 1-2TB drive or few depending on the need for storage.

Grab a nice quiet full tower case if you got room for it, good proper sound card too.

Graphic card is irrelevant as you're not going to be gaming, I'd say something like the passive 5550 will be perfect and you can run up to 3monitors from it as well.

Definitely grab at least 2 large 24"-26" monitors as you want a lot of work space when working with music.

I don't think you can spend 2000 on it, well, you can grab 980X or some 300GB SSD but it will be stupid to do as there are new CPUs coming next year and pretty much anything above i7 930 or 1055/1090T will be silly expensive and pointless to buy ( Unless you really need all that extra power right now ).

So to sum up:

i7 930 + mobo + mem = ¬430 / 1055T + mobo + mem = ¬280
SSD = 150 for 90gb
HDD = ¬45 per 1TB
Sound card = 60 to 180 ( for professional music might want the 100+ ones )
GPU = 50
Monitors = around 120 for 22", ¬160 for 24", 240-250 for 27", preferably 2 at least.

Good case = ¬70-80 - 200
Cooling = 40+
PSU = ¬60-70
------------------------------------------------------
Total = Starts from about 950-1000 for dual monitors setup with nice case, good cooling and fast large SSD and x6 1055T, up to whatever depending on your needs but I'd say this is already a beast setup and you probably won't need anything more ( apart from stuff like larger monitor or more storage or better sound card - CPU wise it has plenty of power ).

There is so much to choose from out there I'm getting myself messed up. I will be needing a top end sound card and muti monitor.

Is there a big margin between the i7930 and 1090T?

 

[PhoenixUK]

There is so much to choose from out there I'm getting myself messed up. I will be needing a top end sound card and muti monitor.

Is there a big margin between the i7930 and 1090T?

Really depends on the application. As far as I'm aware case can use all six cores. It it will utilize all 6 fully then the phenom should be slightly faster, if not then the i7 will be bit better. At the end of the day both CPUs are extremely fast and you probably won't notice any difference without looking at benchmarks.

Also there are new CPUs coming out next year which probably will be a lot faster for this kind of use so I won't spend too much unless you really have to squeeze every few % difference.

I'll get 2 alternative builds for u when I finish work.

 

[chipps101]

i'd go with something like this if i were you -


just add the case you like the look of the most or has any feature you want and if you want an aftermarket cooler add that also and away you go

 

[PhoenixUK]

Chipps got pretty much same build as I'd suggest.
I'd however ask first on sound part of the forums regarding the soundcard which one is best, they will be able to help you better in there.

As said above, choose few cases which you like and we'll help you pick the best one.
I'd myself recommend a full tower case over midi but that's just my preference for bigger cases ; ).

The monitors also depend on the size you want, like I've said, 22" are around 120 each, 24"s are around 160-170 and 26-27 are around 250.


Shame that the only monitors ocUK stocks with full resolution are these:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-001-HS&groupid=17&catid=1120&subcat=

If you don't mind loosing few lines of space on the height, then pretty much anything else from 22 to 26/27 will be good.

I'd probably go for 2x this:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-051-IY&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat=

----------------------------------------------------------------

The i7 alternative will probably go along of this sort:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £214.99
(£182.97) £214.99
(£182.97)
Asus P6X58D-E Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard Asus P6X58D-E Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £154.99
(£131.91) £154.99
(£131.91)
Patriot Viper 2 Sector 7 6GB (3x2GB) PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Kit Patriot Viper 2 Sector 7 6GB (3x2GB) PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Kit £93.99
(£79.99) £93.99
(£79.99)
Sub Total : £394.87
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £70.76
Total : £475.13

Then all other components will be the same, eventually you might want to go for 2 sets of RAM to get total of 12GB but I'm not sure if you'll need that much.


--------------

Total for AMD option with 2 of the monitors I've mentioned, good cooler and decent case will be around 1350-1400, the same build with i7 will be around 80-170 more depending if you go for either 6 or 12gb of ram.

 

[ATIorNvidia]

yes the i5 has the edge on the phenoms when gaming, but by what, 2-10 fps in most games?

Is 2-10 fps worth taking a dead socket, paying £50-£100 more (when you factor in motherboard price)?

Wasn't there rumours that AMD said they are keeping backwards compatibility for their new processors? Buy a cheap phenom or athlon now and later you could upgrade it to a Bulldozer processor. Or just do it simply to save some cash (enough money to spend on a better GPU or an SSD).

Like I said again, if you feeling flush go intel if you just want the best bang for your buck then go AMD.

Also the x6 is faster for everything else apart from gaming and it's a wise investment as a couple of years from now, when hexacores become mainstream they will out perform the i5 even more.

The i5 is simply a bad idea right now, atleast wait until sandybridge.

First of all, it has already been confirmed that Bulldozer will not be backwards compatible with current AM3 processors, do you not read the official Bulldozer blog?

As well as 1156/1366, AM3 is also a dead socket.

The X6 is much slower than the i5's/i7's when it's 6 cores arent being fully utilised, and when they are, the X6 is either equal or just slightly better, I would take 4 strong cores anyday over 6 weak cores, single and dual threaded applications DO exist you know, and will do for a very, very long time.

 

[VFM Addict]

Just to clarify - Bulldozer will not be backward compatible but its new socket (AM3+) will be. So you could for example roll to the new platform by first buying the new AM3+ mobo and initially using just your current AM3 processor in it. Later you could buy a Bulldozer cpu perhaps once he best oc’ing models or steppings have been identified.