athlon vs phenom vs clarkdale

[Cookeh]

If you are not buying until around christmas wait a little longer as Sandybridge will be out soon. Intel is killing off Socket 1156 and replacing it with socket 1155. Cpu's will not be interchangeable between the two sockets.

This is true. However, sandy-bridge may be out of his budget and i3 may still be the best bang for buck.
i5 will be a stable and long lasting foundation for a few years to come - just look at the Q6600 - thats still going strong, as is your CPU!

 

[ng93]

Gap will certainly be bigger, so come that time you could make the jump to i5 for the leap to i7 - or even a new socket all together.

oh had forgot i7 was available on 1156. that would make a nice future upgrade

If you are not buying until around christmas wait a little longer as Sandybridge will be out soon. Intel is killing off Socket 1156 and replacing it with socket 1155. Cpu's will not be interchangeable between the two sockets.

sandy bridge will probably be outside my budget, but could be worth waiting for if you think it'll push down current prices?

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hey ng93

It will be used for gaming, programming and running a couple of virtual machines . . . . oh and i will be overclocking, although never done it before so probably wont get much out of them

Both the Intel® Core™ i3 and AMD® Athlon™ II X4 are good for gaming, the Core™ i3 has slightly better IPC and a nice slab of L3 cache which help it pull ahead in low-threaded tasks but as good as the IPC is there is only two "physical" cores so when it comes to real multi-threaded apps the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 delivers more processing power! . . .

Consider the results below comparing both chips approx clock-for-clock



If you click on the chart above you can examine more results but the picture doesn't change . . . the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 gives you more Multi-Core processing power . . . . if the Intel® Core™ i3 had four physical cores it would win every single test but sadly Intel® are a bit mean with their technology and think that two cores + HT is enough for people looking for a sub £100 processor . . . . although having said that I do think the Intel® Pentium™ Dual-Core G6950 is a better chip than an AMD® Athlon™ II X2 DualCore!

ive seen some athlon x4s at 3.6-3.8. how would a 4.6 pentium be against them in multi threaded apps?

No Intel® Core™ i3 or Intel® Pentium™ Dual-Core can compete with an AMD® Athlon™ II X4 when it comes to Multi-Core performance! . . . People forget that the Core™ i3 is only two physical cores + Hyper-Threading . . . the HT does not scale-up in clock speed the same as the extra Real Cores on the Athlon™ II X4 . . . as can be seen in the test below . . . chugging along at an easy 3.5GHz the Propus outpaces the Core™ i3 @ 4GHz in Multi-Core apps!

 

[Cookeh]

Nice repeat of benchmarks Ive already posted and the Op has already read there Wayne . . .
2nd lot of info is kind of irrelevant as s/he said primary use is gaming, i3 out-performs Athlon II X4 in 90% of games - even if in some cases it is small.

By no means am I saying Athlon II are rubbish chips, X3 is best sub-£80 processor around imo, and for budget PC's needed to wade through a lot of encoding etc then Athlon II X4 is obviously the way to go. But in this case, i3 seems to be the better choice and has - atm - better upgrade paths.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It will be used for gaming, programming and running a couple of virtual machines.

If the OP is running multiple virtual machines the extra cores of an Athlon X4 would be an advantage AFAIK.

Is the OP using Linux BTW??

 

[franco_22]

Id still get the Pentium and overclock it to 4.6ghz.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hello Cookeh

Nice repeat of benchmarks Ive already posted and the Op has already read there Wayne . . .

No actually you showed a 2.9GHz AMD® Athlon™ II X4 against a 3.06Ghz Intel® Core™ i3?

"Oh, and just to prove Intel is the way to go atm, here is the X4 against the i3" #14

2nd lot of info is kind of irrelevant as s/he said primary use is gaming, i3 out-performs Athlon II X4 in 90% of games - even if in some cases it is small

I'm not sure why you feel the need to state anything about what is and what is not relevant? . . . I'm posting to make sure ng93 and anyone else reading the thread get the info they need? . . . its no skin off your nose surely?

From reading ng93's O.P he stated the following:

"It will be used for gaming, programming and running a couple of virtual machines." #1

for budget PC's needed to wade through a lot of [Multi-Core Apps/Virtualization] etc then Athlon II X4 is obviously the way to go.

Sorry Cookeh we don't share the same opinion . . . at least I am not reading this thread as someone doing a pure gaming build? . . . an Intel® Core™ i3 is not really what comes to mind when I think of a Multi-Purpose Gaming, programming, and running a few Virtual machines? . . . the extra cores on the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 along with the AMD-V™ Technology would be ideal no? . . . what do you think?

But in this case, i3 seems to be the better choice and has - atm - better upgrade paths.

What do you mean " in this case"? . . . also what do you mean the i3 has "better upgrade paths" . . . whats to stop ng93 popping one of these in down the line?

AMD® Phenom™ II X6

£135.11 inc

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Phenom II X6 1055T is down to £135!!

 

[franco_22]

It's on special offer. The best AMD CPUs seem to be on special offer with the AM3 Gigabyte UD2H (800chipset) mb.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It seems the Athlon II X4 640 is also on special offer too:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-268-AM

 

[ng93]

Hey ng93

hi Big Wayne and thanks for taking the time to write such a long post. much appreciated

Both the Intel® Core™ i3 and AMD® Athlon™ II X4 are good for gaming, the Core™ i3 has slightly better IPC and a nice slab of L3 cache which help it pull ahead in low-threaded tasks but as good as the IPC is there is only two "physical" cores so when it comes to real multi-threaded apps the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 delivers more processing power! . . .

Consider the results below comparing both chips approx clock-for-clock

[pretty picture]

those benchmarks do look pretty even overall however most of the apps the athlon wins in seem to be rendering/encoding, which i dont do very much anymore

If you click on the chart above you can examine more results but the picture doesn't change . . . the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 gives you more Multi-Core processing power . . . . if the Intel® Core™ i3 had four physical cores it would win every single test but sadly Intel® are a bit mean with their technology and think that two cores + HT is enough for people looking for a sub £100 processor . . . . although having said that I do think the Intel® Pentium™ Dual-Core G6950 is a better chip than an AMD® Athlon™ II X2 DualCore

yh i would love to buy i5 760 but being a broke student i cant afford it

No Intel® Core™ i3 or Intel® Pentium™ Dual-Core can compete with an AMD® Athlon™ II X4 when it comes to Multi-Core performance! . . . People forget that the Core™ i3 is only two physical cores + Hyper-Threading

actually i thought the increased ipc per core and higher clockspeed would make up for the lack of cores. seems i was wrong

. . . the HT does not scale-up in clock speed the same as the extra Real Cores on the Athlon™ II X4 . . .

oh wonder why that is i just assumed increasing the clockspeed made all parts of the core faster

2nd lot of info is kind of irrelevant as s/he said primary use is gaming, i3 out-performs Athlon II X4 in 90% of games - even if in some cases it is small.

he, and work (ie programming) is more important than gaming, although the i3 looks like the best (or atleast equal best) processor for both?

By no means am I saying Athlon II are rubbish chips, . . .

by the amount of discussion in this thread im getting the feeling both are very good chips for the money?

. . .But in this case, i3 seems to be the better choice and has - atm - better upgrade paths.

im i right in saying upgrading from an i3 would give either i5 or i7, and upgrading from athlon ii would give any of the phenom iis?

If the OP is running multiple virtual machines the extra cores of an Athlon X4 would be an advantage AFAIK.

enough of an advantage to make it a better buy over the i3?

Is the OP using Linux BTW??

windows 7 home premium x64 mainly, but am planning to dual boot ubuntu with the intension of learning more about linux and low level software in general, and eventually move all work to ubuntu, leaving windows with only gaming. this is one of the reasons im going for an nvidia graphics card but would it influence any other hardware decisions?

Id still get the Pentium and overclock it to 4.6ghz.

yh that would be pretty savage and lush bragging rights for college

No actually you showed a 2.9GHz AMD® Athlon™ II X4 against a 3.06Ghz Intel® Core™ i3?

does 160mhz make much difference or is this more a matter of principle (if it is then fair enough)

. . . an Intel® Core™ i3 is not really what comes to mind when I think of a Multi-Purpose Gaming, programming, and running a few Virtual machines? . . . the extra cores on the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 along with the AMD-V™ Technology would be ideal no? . . .

whats AMD-V and does intel not have an equivalent?

What do you mean " in this case"? . . . also what do you mean the i3 has "better upgrade paths" . . . whats to stop ng93 popping one of these in down the line?

[x6 1055t]

The Phenom II X6 1055T is down to £135!!

+1 thats an amazing price even on special offer

............................................

damn theres been a lot of replys to my little thread started replying to Big Waynes first post and by the time id finished there were about 10 more underneath lol thanks guys (and gals)

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

enough of an advantage to make it a better buy over the i3?

You can get the Athlon II X4 640 for slightly less than a Core i3 530 ATM on OcUK. With the Athlon II X4 you can dedicate cores to the VM and still have some free for the host OS too. Also remember that the AM3 motherboards start at a lower price point than the equivalent H55 motherboards.

windows 7 home premium x64 mainly, but am planning to dual boot ubuntu with the intension of learning more about linux and low level software in general, and eventually move all work to ubuntu, leaving windows with only gaming. this is one of the reasons im going for an nvidia graphics card but would it influence any other hardware decisions?

You really need to go and visit Phoronix:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=home

The AMD processors do quite well under Linux.

I would check this web page too:

http://global.phoronix-test-suite.com/?k=results

 

[Cookeh]

Hi Big. Wayne,
My apologies, thought it said primarily that use would be gaming, need to stop skim reading.

Similarly, sorry about the mix up with clock speeds, I was in a bit of a rush and didn't have time to Google the right model number.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to state anything about what is and what is not relevant? . . . I'm posting to make sure ng93 and anyone else reading the thread get the info they need? . . . its no skin off your nose surely?

You are correct it is no skin off my nose, my statement was with regard to my error mentioned above.

. . . an Intel® Core™ i3 is not really what comes to mind when I think of a Multi-Purpose Gaming, programming, and running a few Virtual machines? . . . the extra cores on the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 along with the AMD-V™ Technology would be ideal no? . . . what do you think?

Again, error due to speed read, however the benchmarks you and I both linked to don't show a great difference between them - and as the i3 will clock further combined with its higher IPC there really is negligible difference between the two for most things but gaming - where the OC'd i3 wins hands down (Basing this off article I read on bit-tech a few weeks ago, so may not be 100% correct but I have to do several things that exclude trawling through the internet looking for an old article ).

What do you mean " in this case"? . . . also what do you mean the i3 has "better upgrade paths" . . . whats to stop ng93 popping one of these in down the line?

Surely you know this one Wayne . . .
down the line, he could pop in an i5 - which is pretty much on a par with the X6 in everything:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/147?vs=191

Then, if he was feeling that performance was lacking, he could drop an i7 in - with this effect:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/147?vs=108

Beating and sometimes trouncing the X6 in most (all but 2 to be precise) benchmarks commonly used.

 

[Cookeh]

Sorry, Im a little lost. Is it primarily for gaming or virtual machines and programming?

If the latter, then it has to be the X4, unless you can save some more money and go i5.

If the former, I still maintain - and have quantified it, that the i3 is the better option.

Again, still maintain the AT THE MOMENT the Intel chips have the best upgrade path (see my above post for benchies )

As CAT pointed out, however, P55 chipsets are a little more costly than the 7XX an 8XX counter-parts, you do get more shiney and in some cases better specs though.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hello ng93

those benchmarks do look pretty even overall however most of the apps the athlon wins in seem to be rendering/encoding, which i dont do very much anymore

Indeed . . . those results were just included not specifically to show off the Encoding/Rendering power of four "Real" cores but instead to demonstrate the "Multi-Core" advantage of the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 . . . Any MultiCore application that relies on pure processing "muscle" will complete quicker on the Athlon™ II X4 . . . if your mainly using older single threaded apps then the Core™ i3 with its higher IPC will be slighty better! . . .

actually i thought the increased ipc per core and higher clockspeed would make up for the lack of cores. seems i was wrong

Indeed . . . AMD® can't compete with Intel®'s IPC so they just give you more Cores! . . . for less money ££

oh wonder why that is i just assumed increasing the clockspeed made all parts of the core faster

Well as you overclock the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 you are actually increasing the speed of each of the physical cores but when you overclock the Intel® Core™ i3 you are only increasing the speed of the two physical cores . . . the Hyperthreading remains constant I believe . . .

work (ie programming) is more important than gaming, although the i3 looks like the best (or atleast equal best) processor for both?

For 1-2 threaded gaming then I agree the Intel® Core™ i3 just edges it but for more modern MultiCore games in those results such as Batman:Arkham Asylum and Dragon Age Origins which respond to three Cores or more you can see the results are level pegging . . . even pulling ahead in Batman! . . . I would say the main advantage the Core™ i3 has in this area is its 4MB of L3 cache which the Athlon™ II X4 lacks . . . but having extra real cores clearly makes up for no L3 cache in more modern games . . . I don't see a lot in it myself! . . .

by the amount of discussion in this thread im getting the feeling both are very good chips for the money?

Totally . . . go with either that you feel best meets your needs of today and tomorrow . . . the Intel® Core™ i3 used to be £99 odd which was OverPriced but due to the popularity of the affordable AMD® Athlon™ II range Intel® have had to drop the price and has made the Core™ i3 more competitive!

im i right in saying upgrading from an i3 would give either i5 or i7, and upgrading from athlon ii would give any of the phenom iis?

Yup . . . All the current AMD® AM3 chips would work in a half decent AM3/AM2+ mobo . . . and all the Core™ i3/i5/i7 work fine in a LGA1156 mobo . . .

enough of an advantage to make it a better buy over the i3?

I don't know what kinda level of virtualization you are doing or how many Virtual-Machines you will be running but its normally better to dedicate a Physical Core to each machine . . . with the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 you obviously got four physical cores to real with, say two for two Virtual-Machines and you still got two Physcial cores left for your main work . . . . The Intel® Core™ i3 only has two physical cores? . . . I'm sure thats not ideal for a virtualization set-up?

AMD Virtualization (AMD-V™) Technology

yh that would be pretty savage and lush bragging rights for college

I see . . . I guess there could also be a fellow skint student at your college with an OverClocked AMD® Athlon™ II X4 who will quitely snigger at you with your 4.6GHz clocked Dual-Core as he knows his compiling/processor intensive work will complete faster!

Regardless of which was you go make sure you get at least a DualCore with HT, a TripleCore or a QuadCore . . . DualCores are kinda getting a bit long in the tooth now!

+1 thats an amazing price even on special offer

Yup . . . an AMD® Phenom™ II X6 for £135 smackers and will work in most AM2+/AM3 motherboards you buy today . . . . certainly looks like an obvious upgrade path from a humble AMD® Athlon™ II X4 to me!

Athlon™ II X4 630 (stock 2.8GHz)


Click for stability . . . 30 hour "Blend"

 

[ng93]

sorry should have explained it better. in order of importance:

programming
gaming
virtual machines
basic tasks (web browsing etc.)

the VMs will be running linux/xp/maybe osx and be used for testing websites so not anything heavy duty.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

In any software that can use more than 4 cores the Phenom II X6 1055T is around the same as a Core i7 860 at a much lower price-point. Also new revisions of software can make a big difference to the scores. For example Bittech and Anandtech use Cinebench R10. Cinebench R11 has better optimisations for AMD processors which means much higher scores.

Also what OS you will use also is important as most benchmarks are under Windows and the OP wants to use Ubuntu for their non-gaming needs. Again the OP should check Phoronix.

Another thing is that since socket AM3+ will accept socket AM3 processors and DDR3 RAM it should mean that it will be easier for the OP to upgrade their system in steps.

Of course for any virtual machine work the Phenom II X6 has six available cores versus the 4 available cores of a Core i5 760.

 

[ng93]

You can get the Athlon II X4 640 for slightly less than a Core i3 530 ATM on OcUK. With the Athlon II X4 you can dedicate cores to the VM and still have some free for the host OS too. Also remember that the AM3 motherboards start at a lower price point than the equivalent H55 motherboards.



You really need to go and visit Phoronix:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=home

The AMD processors do quite well under Linux.

I would check this web page too:

http://global.phoronix-test-suite.com/?k=results

cheers for the link will look at it in more detail tomorrow

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

These two reviews compare the Athlon II X4 640 and Core i3 530 directly:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Athlon-II-X4-640-vs-Core-i3-530-CPU-Review/1041/1

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/aii_640_aii_610e/

The Athlon II X4 640 is around £76:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-268-AM

The Core i3 530 is around £80:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-311-IN

You can get decent budget AM3 ATX motherboards like the ASRock M3A770DE or the MSI 770-C45 or 870-C45 for around £45 to £55.

Even, Bit tech which tend to prefer Intel processors think that the MSI 770-C45 is a fantastic budget motherboard:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2009/09/17/msi-770-c45-motherboard-review/1

AM3 motherboards start at around the £40 mark.

OTH,the cheapest H55 motherboards start around £55 to £60 and are mATX with less slots. ATX H55 and P55 motherboards start around £70.

 

[ng93]

Hello ng93

Hello again Big Wayne

Indeed . . . those results were just included not specifically to show off the Encoding/Rendering power of four "Real" cores but instead to demonstrate the "Multi-Core" advantage of the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 . . . Any MultiCore application that relies on pure processing "muscle" will complete quicker on the Athlon™ II X4 . . . if your mainly using older single threaded apps then the Core™ i3 with its higher IPC will be slighty better! . . .

ah that makes sense, but what about multi-tasking i.e. running a few single threaded apps simultaneously?

Indeed . . . AMD® can't compete with Intel®'s IPC so they just give you more Cores! . . . for less money ££

seems like a good alternative

Well as you overclock the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 you are actually increasing the speed of each of the physical cores but when you overclock the Intel® Core™ i3 you are only increasing the speed of the two physical cores . . . the Hyperthreading remains constant I believe . . .

oh cool learn something new everyday

I don't know what kinda level of virtualization you are doing or how many Virtual-Machines you will be running but its normally better to dedicate a Physical Core to each machine . . . with the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 you obviously got four physical cores to real with, say two for two Virtual-Machines and you still got two Physcial cores left for your main work . . . . The Intel® Core™ i3 only has two physical cores? . . . I'm sure thats not ideal for a virtualization set-up?

AMD Virtualization (AMD-V™) Technology

thanks for the link and after some googling it seems i3s dont have hardware virtualisation (at least not as much as athlons) i just assumed all modern processors had it

I see . . . I guess there could also be a fellow skint student at your college with an OverClocked AMD® Athlon™ II X4 who will quitely snigger at you with your 4.6GHz clocked Dual-Core as he knows his compiling/processor intensive work will complete faster!

yh lol to be honest that was just a joke most people at college spend all their money on their computers, with i7s, 5870s etc. i spend most of my money on me car (petrol)

Click for stability . . . 30 hour "Blend"

nice oc!!!