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AMD V Intel CPU choice

koolpc

koolpc

koolpc

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Under The Desk, Wales
Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor

AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 645 3.10GHz

2 CPUs within my price range and i am looking to build a nice PC but would only need onboard graphics. Matx would be fine. Not sure which to go for and what mobo / ram to get.

I would be using the pc for some photography work and nothing too taxing but i may want to buy a separate GPU sometime in the future but that is not a must have item at the mo.

I already have a Micro ATX case, PSU and Hard drive and dvdrw

So guys, which CPU would you go for and why and can someone marry it up with a nice mobo and 4gig ram as i am hopeless at that.

Cheers
 
Phatzy said:
This should help you decide.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/188?vs=289
Click to expand...

Not really as the OP says he wants to take advantage of integrated graphics for now so you need to take that into account and which one provides a better option there too, so just CPU benches can be slightly misleading in this case.
Not that am in a position to recommend either at the minute as kind of out of touch with things atm. Although if you were getting a GPU I'd probably go for the Intel in your situation out of the two.
Maybe worthwhile considering a Llano setup too?
 
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davieg said:
Not really as the OP says he wants to take advantage of integrated graphics for now so you need to take that into account and which one provides a better option there too, so just CPU benches can be slightly misleading in this case.
Not that am in a position to recommend either at the minute as kind of out of touch with things atm. Although if you were getting a GPU I'd probably go for the Intel in your situation out of the two.
Maybe worthwhile considering a Llano setup too?
Click to expand...

It depends what the OP wants to use the integrated graphics for.

If all they need is them for is to provide a display then really anything will do.
 
What I have found in my PCs is that the AMDs, are much more responsive, and always give a much higher RAM benchmark than the intels do.

When it comes to Video processing there isnt THAT much in it in spite of the many benchmarks I see and in fact, its really as much the app used as the CPU.

Also the i3 is a dual core CPU ( hyperthreading yeah, but its still dual core ) while the AMD is true quad. Thats a negative to the Intel
The AMD however has no L3 Cache so thast a negative to the AMD.


I have just had a look and this week only has the Phenom which is a better CPU for only £83 - Go for that.
 
Surveyor said:
Really?

AMD are way down this list.
Click to expand...


Yes really.

Ok, I am ONLY going by my own PCs and hardware, and only the stuff thats roughly on par ( Very flexible on the roughnes too )

For example my only Quad AMD is only a 9950 Phenom and I only got that purely as a straight swap cos the lad was offering it in a DS3 and at the time I also have an Intel 9550 in a DS3 so it was purely fun.

But anyway, in that, the Windows experience score is 7.2 but yet the intel is only 6.8

Similarly with say the AMD 5600 which is a dual ore, again in another Gigabyte 780 Chipset board, but this time an S2H also gave me 7.1 this time, but the Intels all seem to float at 6.7 or 6.8 while the AMDs both gave 7.1 or 7.2

Now, as I said, these are only roughly on par with each other, my AMD PCs are 5600dc, 7750dc and 9550qc and the Intels are 6400 to 6600 all dual and the 9550 quad on both AMD and intel. I have not bothered to check the I7 - thats a completely different category altogether... Oh, right, I just checked the i7 ( exp = 7.5 ) and my daughters PC ( AMD mem = 5.8 ) so Im looking a knob head now.

I have not really given any of my PCs a true benchtest for yonks - I stopped doing that a fair while ago because just after I spend several hundred pounds upping my opteron 939 system into a seriously powerful overclocked machine, I knocked up my first C2D PC for a fraction of the cost only to find it murdered my Opteron in every way... I dont want that to happen again.

At best,m what I now do, is once in a while, after I have done some overhaul or whatever, I get the PC to convert an AVI to a DVD on 2 cores ( even the Quad Cores ) and see how that fares when I also play a game of UT at the same time... None of them make even the slightest glitch so as far as I care... Its all good.

Although I do try some alterations to tweak, I dont go as bad as I used to, and none of my PCs are overclocked at this time.
 
LOL no... Well, ok yes, as a first guide yes, but then I dont go by benchmark programs, like I just said I will run tests like doing my own Video processing etc.

If anyone goes by benchmarks and takes them as... well... Gospel, then more fool them.

But for me, I do some ghopst hunting and so I have lots of videos to convert and so I run the very same video on PC A and PC B and I get an idea of its true comparative speeds that are relevant to me... Sure, I might find that my AMD is twice the speed as my Intel on that particular video and then I go and play a game and I find the AMD is incapable of doing it... Sure I can accpet that can happen, but until it does, then my own benchmarks are a much more realistic idea of how fast any one of my PCs are than the others.

The Windows benchmark was only a simple guide really, I know its not a true benchmark that you can wage serious money on, but its a fairly acceptable guide none the less. It has just as much weight as any other benchmark out there as far as I am concerned.
 
Response time is about more than the processor though, Hard drive and RAM play a massive part in computer response times. And Windows experience is not a performance indicator atall.

Main problem with what you're saying though FatRakoon is you cant say AMD are better at Intel for anything. Neither can you say the reverse.

Like for like processors are what you compare, not companies. If people could get their heads around that the world would be so much the better place for it :p

The 2 processors in question are pretty equal which is why people ask this question often.

Sandybridge holds the performance crown at the moment, so going with the sandybridge socket gives you the possibility of upgrading to i5,i7s later. And you cant get much better than those.

BUT. If you went the AM3 socket way, you'd get some great performing processors at a cheaper price.

If i was doing the upgrade I'd be looking at i3, mainly because of the upgrade path in the future and the great performance right now.
 
Unless you're benchmarking, i dont think you'd notice much difference at all gaming and editing pics.
 
wannabedamned said:
Main problem with what you're saying though FatRakoon is you cant say AMD are better at Intel for anything. Neither can you say the reverse.
Click to expand...


Thats not at all what I said though? - or was it? It wasnt meant to be that at all anyway.

My fastest PC is an intel i7 but I never included this in my posts. When I am comparing these others, I am only comparing like for like PCs that are roughly on par with each other, which is pretty much as the OP was asking... Those 2 CPUs are roughly on par with each other.
 
Never heard of Llano as i have been out of loop for ages!!

Is that a better buy than the 2 i mentioned?
 
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