• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

AMD or not to AMD

3drealm

3drealm

3drealm

Permabanned
Joined
14 Sep 2016
Posts
19
Hi

I'm in the process of building a new system, and I'm at the crucial stage where I need to decide which route to go. Intel or AMD. I've been an AMD guy for going on 20 years now, but my loyalty has been tested in recent years. I'm really hoping their new line of cpu are on a par with Intels latest offering, but I have my doubts. Would I be best off waiting to see how AMD goes, or should I just cut my losses so to speak, and go Skylake?

Thanks
 
What's it for? If gaming, what games, monitor, GPU, etc.?

For a brand new gaming system, AMD are the best option for APUs, or where your CPU budget is less than about £120. Above that you've really got to go with Intel.

The other option is to wait ~ 6 months for Zen.
 
To be honest I don't see AMD winning at any price point. Even the overclockable Haswell Pentium in my second system spanks an Athlon 860k for a similar price. If you're movie editing, then the 8 core FX series might work out better for multithreading but thats about it.

The only way I see AMD being viable is if you want a super small ITX system for low demand games like league of legends, where an APU like the 7850K is better than what Intel offers graphically.

I would just get a 6600k if you're gaming, or a 6700k/5820k if you're multithreaded. I doubt CPUs are going to get much better in the next 5 years.
 
If your hoping Zen is on par with Intel (let's assume it is) then it makes no difference what you choose and you may as well buy what's available now rather than wait for something that will only match Intel later on. Of course you have a nagging doubt (don't we all) that it won't match Intel in which case choosing Intel now is win win.
 
AiiR said:
To be honest I don't see AMD winning at any price point. Even the overclockable Haswell Pentium in my second system spanks an Athlon 860k for a similar price. If you're movie editing, then the 8 core FX series might work out better for multithreading but thats about it.
Click to expand...

There are no Anniversary Pentiums on the latest platform, and they struggle in many games anyway.

In the low-end the only option now is the AMD 860K (£66).

You have to almost double the budget to find a comparable Intel CPU in the i3 6100, which is a slightly mad £110. But at that price you could almost get an AMD 8320 (£120) which would faster most of the time.

Edit: I suppose Haswell is an option though, it's not like an FM2+ machine is going to be very cutting edge either.
 
Last edited:
a intel i3 6100 is actually faster than a fx 8350 in some games when using a decent graphics card,after starting off on amd and now switching to intel I can tell a MASSIVE difference in performance,also my temps are lower and less tpd.

get a budget intel system I would advise,the i3 cpus are great with anything up to and including a gtx 970 :)
 
joeyjojo said:
There are no Anniversary Pentiums on the latest platform, and they struggle in many games anyway.

In the low-end the only option now is the AMD 860K (£66).

You have to almost double the budget to find a comparable Intel CPU in the i3 6100, which is a slightly mad £110. But at that price you could almost get an AMD 8320 (£120) which would faster most of the time.

Edit: I suppose Haswell is an option though, it's not like an FM2+ machine is going to be very cutting edge either.
Click to expand...

Doesn't really matter, Haswell isn't much older than Kaveri and has much better IPC. You can pick the pentiums up 2nd hand for 30 quid and clock them to 4ghz+ with ease. You'll probably find Z97 boards with better features than FM2+ too.

My Pentium K doesn't struggle at 4.6GHz. Easily maintains 60fps in 1080p and it's only driving a 7950 at 1GHz clock. Sure it's not as good as an i3 but for basic gaming on a budget its fine and often better than the 860k/8320.
 
I think this question is impossible to answer without some idea of your budget. Reason being you typically have to spend quite a lot on GPUs before the CPU becomes the bottleneck. I have an FX-8350. It's pretty capable and doesn't hold back my single GPU system. I'd need to get another card probably before it could no longer keep up.

This assumes your purpose is gaming, of course. If you tell us you're running weather simulations or something, the answer changes.
 
Thanks for all the help:) I'm quite eager to get my system finished off, so the thought of waiting for AMD to get their finger out is a little off putting. It's just being with AMD so long, old habits die hard I suppose. It's like the proverbial carrot on a stick. I remember when I bought my 8120 and being very underwhelmed, but feeling held back from switching out due to a combination of misguided loyalty and the hope that "in the near future" things might be better.

I'm going to be gaming and using design tools such as 3ds max and photoshop, so ideally a cpu that offers gains in those areas. Having never gone Intel before, I'm just trying to collect as much info as possible before I commit. In all honestly though, Skylake is looking more and more appealing. Specifically an i7-6700k.
 
3drealm said:
I'm going to be gaming and using design tools such as 3ds max and photoshop, so ideally a cpu that offers gains in those areas. Having never gone Intel before, I'm just trying to collect as much info as possible before I commit. In all honestly though, Skylake is looking more and more appealing. Specifically an i7-6700k.
Click to expand...

3drealm said:
Should have added. My budget is around £400.
Click to expand...

For the tower (CPU, motherboard, memory, graphics, storage, PSU, case)? Software (OS)?

An i7-6700K is way out of the budget if you need everything - it's over £300 on its own.
 
joeyjojo said:
For the tower (CPU, motherboard, memory, graphics, storage, PSU, case)? Software (OS)?

An i7-6700K is way out of the budget if you need everything - it's over £300 on its own.
Click to expand...

£400 for the cpu and all required cooling. Which would probably be one of those hybrid water cooling systems that Corsair do.
 
If you've the budget then go for that then, it's a very capable, high-end CPU.

Will you be overclocking?

If the hyperthreading doesn't offer that much you should also consider an i5, the saving is almost £100.

Some might argue you go down the 5820K route (£360) with that budget, but that's really overkill IMO.
 
What system do you have now/specs?

What do you want to use the new PC for?

What is your full budget?

What is your planned spec so far?

We might be able to help you out. :)

Well, some of us might... :p
 
As an AMD fan and long time loyalist, I have taken the jump to Intel, my Mobo died while running a fx 8350, I upgraded to a 4790k and it was night and day difference, I still however plan to side step back to AMD if the Zen is good enough but my advice would be to get an intel processor at the moment, the FX 83** processors are power hungry and run hot, they are good don't get me wrong but from my experience, the 4790k runs much quicker, it runs cooler and consumes less power.
 
I'd honestly argue that they are not good at all. :p

When an 8 core CPU is less capable than a dual core Intel CPU, while using more than double the power, I'd call that bad.

The only thing going for them when they were kicking about was that they were cheap, and might have offered a slight edge over a Pentium or i3 in games or applications which make use of lots of threads.

The Phenom II X4 was the last competitive CPU AMD made, when it took on the Core 2 Quad... After that they got left behind.

I'm hoping they pull it back with Zen. :)
 
Last edited:
For the first time in over 10 years my latest upgrade has made my PC an AMD free zone - they just don't have anything competitive currently.

I can't get my hopes up about Zen, Polaris was underwhelming and Vega seems a long way off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom