Is intel really that good?

newbieclocker · 9 Dec 2012 at 18:13

Hey guys

Just checked the and processors to see that for 130 pounds you can get an eight core chip. To be honest at this price why shouldn't I get it Intel is more expensive and is slower. So can someone tell me why most people get Intel.

Thanks.

Martini1991 · 9 Dec 2012 at 18:15

Clock speeds and core count aren't the whole story.
Easiest way to put it.

Jokester · 9 Dec 2012 at 18:15

Martini1991 said:
Clock speeds and core count aren't the whole story.
Easiest way to put it.

What he says.

SlugForAButt · 9 Dec 2012 at 18:28

I think most people buy Intel because it is a component in their machine which they know nothing about (they'd be better off with an A8/A10).
Some people buy Intel because of brand loyalty.
But as of now, I think a vast minority of people (such as some on this site) buy Intel because they are happy to pay a premium for premium benchmark results.

I run Intel atm because I haven't upgraded for a while, but I'd go AMD if I was upgrading now. I'd just value that £100 saving for similar performance (and being the next gen console component of choice, software will be optimised for AMD rather than Intel).

panyan · 9 Dec 2012 at 18:57

newbieclocker said:
Is intel really that good?

No, its better

mmj_uk · 9 Dec 2012 at 19:05

If you take into account the actual speed of the cores it's like being given the choice between 8 Mopeds and 4 Harley Davidson's.

Unless there is a job where all 8 bikes are needed it's best to have the 4 Harley's and even when all 8 bikes are needed they still only get the job in the same time as the 4 Harley's.

Sayso · 9 Dec 2012 at 19:30

Ive recently gone from a 1090T 6 core to a Ivy 4 and the Ivy is faster and uses less power.

I bought the 1090T with the idea of upgrading to bulldozer which turned out worse per core than the chip it was replacing.

The only time i would buy a AMD was if i was running without a GPU

newbieclocker · 9 Dec 2012 at 19:45

OK then thanks guys.

Tonester0011 · 9 Dec 2012 at 19:45

AMD need all those cores to compete with Intels much higher IPC.
The problem comes when the program you're using doesn't utilise all those cores, if the game/program you're using is single threaded Intel > AMD for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

As for pricing, everything in terms of prices is relative to the performance it offers...most the time

AMD offer far superior APU performance however

MrMarvelous · 9 Dec 2012 at 22:02

You should be able to get an i5 2500K for around your budget and that will blow anything AMD have to offer out of the water, even more so when you overclock it.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 9 Dec 2012 at 22:27

SlugForAButt said:
I think most people buy Intel because it is a component in their machine which they know nothing about (they'd be better off with an A8/A10).
Some people buy Intel because of brand loyalty.
But as of now, I think a vast minority of people (such as some on this site) buy Intel because they are happy to pay a premium for premium benchmark results.

I run Intel atm because I haven't upgraded for a while, but I'd go AMD if I was upgrading now. I'd just value that £100 saving for similar performance (and being the next gen console component of choice, software will be optimised for AMD rather than Intel).

My mate was running some multi-threaded stuff under Linux,and his Phenom II X6 is around the same in throughput as my Core i5 for that. It saved him around £40 to £50,which he put towards another monitor. He multi-tasks quite a bit(not such a big gamer though) and it seems quite responsive.

Single thread performance seems perfectly fine for a lot of purposes. I had a Core i3 2100 and a A6-3670K,and TBH for general purpose things, I could not tell the difference. Having had a Core i3 myself,I would get an FX6300 over it for most purposes or one of the AMD A10 CPUs. OTH,the Phenom II X6 1045T is dirt cheap new,and I have seen a few people get 4GHZ with that CPU on a 970 motherboard with a £30 cooler.

Even,with the Core i5,its main advantage is the performance in games based on older engines which don't thread well,and the better platform support for dual cards. I consider them better for gaming overall as a result,although if you are running games based on newer engines the FX8300 series are not too bad. Something,like an FX8320 at its current price is actually decent value for money IMHO for virtualisation work or even video encoding or those sorts of things.

nalla · 9 Dec 2012 at 22:46

I think most people buy Intel because it is a component in their machine which they know nothing about (they'd be better off with an A8/A10).
Some people buy Intel because of brand loyalty.
But as of now, I think a vast minority of people (such as some on this site) buy Intel because they are happy to pay a premium for premium benchmark results.

no no no, people buy intel because they are better, people buy amd because they are better value for money, i doubt anyone in the know can argue with that.

joeyjojo · 10 Dec 2012 at 09:55

nalla said:
no no no, people buy intel because they are better, people buy amd because they are better value for money, i doubt anyone in the know can argue with that.

Nobody in the know would put it that simply.

Current intel chips have better low-threaded performance than AMD (games). In highly threaded apps, cheaper AMD chips are faster. But they are also quite a bit less energy efficient.

Gaming machines are using intel chips. Workstations, servers, and clusters are using AMD. You get the product that makes most sense for the application.

Rocker · 10 Dec 2012 at 11:10

joeyjojo said:
Nobody in the know would put it that simply.

Current intel chips have better low-threaded performance than AMD (games). In highly threaded apps, cheaper AMD chips are faster. But they are also quite a bit less energy efficient.

Gaming machines are using intel chips. Workstations, servers, and clusters are using AMD. You get the product that makes most sense for the application.

So if you were not a gamer and never used your system for gaming but did a lot of virtual machine work and audio/video you'd go for an AMD?

Kaapstad · 10 Dec 2012 at 11:57

AMDs problem is they have nothing to match the hex core i7s, if they ever did find a CPU to match them I don't think intel would have any problem churning out hex cores at i5 prices.

opethdisciple · 10 Dec 2012 at 12:01

At the moment the assumption is that 2 AMD cores = 1 Intel core.

But then AMD need the software to efficiently utilise multicores to match Intels performance.

Martini1991 · 10 Dec 2012 at 12:02

Kaapstad said:
AMDs problem is they have nothing to match the hex core i7s, if they ever did find a CPU to match them I don't think intel would have any problem churning out hex cores at i5 prices.

Indeed, I think a lot of people overlook this.

drunkenmaster · 10 Dec 2012 at 12:46

Nothing is simple really, and most people just ignore the facts and make an uninformed snap judgement. A similarly priced Piledriver can more often than not beat a 2500k, yet because of earlier Bulldozer reviews, which since have gained 5-10% based off a scheduler update alone, more with more optimisation added to many ridiculously awful benchmarks based on awful code(super pi, Intel's own benchmarking suite they pass off as from a third party), people just decide anything remotely associated with Bulldozer is crap.

AMD chips are also unfairly judged as power inefficient.... but not completely. A 100W APU basically pushes too much on clock speed to gain little in performance and needs too much voltage to do so. A 65W trinity uses 2/3rd's the power but has 80-85% of the performance. So lower power trinity is significantly more power competitive with Intel chips. Kind of like overclocking takes a ridiculous amount of power for not that much performance improvement. A bulldozer used crazy power under overclocking, but so would a Sandybridge, it would still double power usage on a sandy going up what, 30-40% clock speeds.

Its not a bad architecture, its improving and it will improve dramatically with the next major interation, but being on 32nm vs 22nm, needing higher clock speeds and the voltage/power cost that has.

The fact that a 100W 32nm CAN compete with a quad core 77W 22nm is actually not unimpressive, especially as the gpu is miles better and power/performance in gaming AMD is actually MILES ahead when comparing trinity to Ivybridge of any type.

For the majority of people, most people wouldn't tell what chip you had in your computer, e-mail, browsing, basic games, nothing Intel can't handle, nothing Trinity would have trouble with either.

I've currently got a 2500k, its a great chip, if I wanted an APU specifically I'd almost certainly go Trinity for both price and performance all around. Next big upgrade I don't know, I think Steamroller will surprise a lot of people in all out performance, an octo core non GPU I think will be a serious option, the question will be, how well a quad core + gpu will do... I think for balls out performance in 12-18 months time, a quad core Steamroller won't be particularly good(much better than now but 4 cores in another 2 years?) though the GPU will still pound Intel.

What AMD need is a hex core with half sized gpu, I don't want to game on the IGP at all, but having it take over non gaming duties, idle the discrete GPU would be great. A small gpu and 2 extra cpu cores would do WAY more for me than a top IGP.

joeyjojo · 10 Dec 2012 at 12:55

Rocker said:
So if you were not a gamer and never used your system for gaming but did a lot of virtual machine work and audio/video you'd go for an AMD?

Probably for that kind of work, especially if I wanted value for money. If I was going to run it 24/7 I probably wouldn't though as they're a fair bit less power efficient than the intel alternative.

Kaapstad said:
AMDs problem is they have nothing to match the hex core i7s, if they ever did find a CPU to match them I don't think intel would have any problem churning out hex cores at i5 prices.

They do, but not for consumers. A pair of 6344s come out around the same price as the 3930K, but give you 24 cores. As above, you can think of this as similar to 12 cores in intel's architecture. In a memory intensive, multithreaded environment, I expect these would be higher performance.

http://www.servethehome.com/amd-opteron-6300-lineup-intel-xeon-threat/

The real attraction of these chips is in HPC though, as you can stick 4 of these 16-core chips in a mobo with practically as much memory as you want (up to 512 GB) and have a crunching beast. More, lower clock speed cores give you a really power efficient machine too.

Martini1991 · 10 Dec 2012 at 12:59

joeyjojo said:
Probably for that kind of work, especially if I wanted value for money. If I was going to run it 24/7 I probably wouldn't though as they're a fair bit less power efficient than the intel alternative.

They do, but not for consumers. A pair of 6344s come out around the same price as the 3930K, but give you 24 cores. As above, you can think of this as similar to 12 cores in intel's architecture. In a memory intensive, multithreaded environment, I expect these would be higher performance.

http://www.servethehome.com/amd-opteron-6300-lineup-intel-xeon-threat/

The real attraction of these chips is in HPC though, as you can stick 4 of these 16-core chips in a mobo with practically as much memory as you want (up to 512 GB) and have a crunching beast. More, lower clock speed cores give you a really power efficient machine too.

Intel has none consumer parts too though.