# upgrading...AMD or Intel?



## Phil H (May 14, 2006)

Which one is the best option these days? I am looking into building a new PC more towards the gaming side but not extreme stuff due to cost.


----------



## Neil_S (Oct 26, 2005)

I think Intel are just ahead at the moment, some of the latest CPU's are pretty good on the power saving too, this was my impression when I built my backup server earlier in the year.


----------



## treaclesponge (May 29, 2008)

Not a lot in it if you aren't looking at silly money. I was always an Intel fan but recently went with AMD and got the 6000+. Lets face it, do you really notice when its on anyway? The AMD is more bang for buck from what I can see with a slightly more limited range of motherboards on offer if you take the AM2 route. Personal preference and experience I think is the deciding vote.


----------



## Neil_S (Oct 26, 2005)

My decision was driven primarily by power, the Intel chip seemed to consume alot less power and therefore the generated heat was less so it would not only cost less, but be easier to cool.


----------



## TDISport (Apr 18, 2006)

I used to use AMD over Intel due to cost mainly and to be honest i dont think you will notice a great difference in performance, but it seems to me that Intel always seem to be perhaps half a step ahead. If i were you i would opt for Intel though, but if money is a major issue go with what sticks out as a good deal.


----------



## spitfire (Feb 10, 2007)

AMD for gaming and Intel for work. Not that I know but my son built his own super duper PC. He's thinking about water cooling it soon


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

Intel are way ahead of AMD at the moment, the AMD chips don't even come close. However that could all change in the future.


----------



## Ducky (Mar 19, 2007)

Intel Quad core or i7 if you can wait, no contest in my book. :thumb:


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

AMD fell back behind Intel a couple of years ago and when I last looked they hadn't caught up. When Intel had launched their Quad cores, AMD was just bringing out their tri-cores.


----------



## spitfire (Feb 10, 2007)

jamest said:


> AMD fell back behind Intel a couple of years ago and when I last looked they hadn't caught up. When Intel had launched their Quad cores, AMD was just bringing out their tri-cores.


Again, I'm no expert but AMD were designed around the gaming scene I beleive, were they not?


----------



## Naddy37 (Oct 27, 2005)

I'd never use AMD. I've built 3 AMD pc's over the past couple of years, and each one has blown within a year.


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

spitfire said:


> Again, I'm no expert but AMD were designed around the gaming scene I beleive, were they not?


It's really all marketing, they may have advertised them as something along the lines of "the latest AMD cpu for gaming" etc but a fast CPU if a fast CPU it's never designed for a specific purpose like gaming.


----------



## spitfire (Feb 10, 2007)

rmorgan84 said:


> It's really all marketing, they may have advertised them as something along the lines of "the latest AMD cpu for gaming" etc but a fast CPU if a fast CPU it's never designed for a specific purpose like gaming.


I bow to your superior knowledge m8:thumb: Just going on what I was told


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

neilos said:


> I'd never use AMD. I've built 3 AMD pc's over the past couple of years, and each one has blown within a year.


Not all AMD's are bad. I have had some good work horses in the past.


spitfire said:


> I bow to your superior knowledge m8:thumb: Just going on what I was told


AMD were doing better in games due to some of the specs of their CPUs that I never got into but not as good in commercial environments etc which was perfect for their marketing.


----------



## Phil H (May 14, 2006)

hmm interesting, 


i am still currently using my AMD 64 3500+ Shuttle PC that i built in 2005 which is great only its getting on a bit and needs a new hard drive which are pretty cheap these days!


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

Phil H said:


> hmm interesting,
> 
> i am still currently using my AMD 64 3500+ Shuttle PC that i built in 2005 which is great only its getting on a bit and needs a new hard drive which are pretty cheap these days!


I had a 3500+ about 4 years ago, they were good little CPUs at the time. But yeah they are slow coaches by today's standards.


----------



## PugIain (Jun 28, 2006)

Ive been an AMD fan since I bought an old rig off a mate,Its got a 2ghz Sempron Barton in it (currently clocked to 2.2ghz).
Its had the crap kicked out of it (including my hash up overclocking technique) and its still perfectly fine,even lasted 3 days with a buggered cooling fan!


----------



## gsd2000 (Jul 25, 2006)

the intel q6600 go stepping is a very good chip with good cooling it can overclock very well


----------



## mouthyman (May 1, 2006)

im in the process of building a new machine as we speak, and i went for an intel quad core, intel have the edge at the moment


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Although the AMD Athlon X2 4850e looks a very good buy. £42 only uses 45W of power. Reasonably good performance.


----------



## Phil H (May 14, 2006)

looks like i'm leaning more towards the intel quad core ........


----------



## dominic84 (Jan 27, 2007)

Intel :thumb: I've never been a fan of AMD.


----------



## Phil H (May 14, 2006)

just been looking into the cache sizes and Intel seem to **** on AMD.......or am i wrong


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

yeah a top of the line quad core has 12mb iirc.


----------



## Matt197 (Dec 27, 2006)

My first home built computer was a 3.2 P4 that was fast, then I moved to an AMD Dual Core 4400+ and this was even faster and I am still using it today, but is slow now and I can tell the difference.

After using Intel Dual Cores and Quad Cores I can say they are a lot faster, not just faster than my current computer but other new AMD platforms that we use as well.

When I get around to building my next computer I will be going back to Intel.


----------



## spitfire (Feb 10, 2007)

spitfire said:


> I bow to your superior knowledge m8:thumb: Just going on what I was told


 My son reliably informs me  that I was totally wrong. He says that what he told me was that the AMD is probably better for graphics in that it has a part of the processor dedicated to this. But I may have got that wrong too. Senile dementia setting in


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

spitfire said:


> My son reliably informs me  that I was totally wrong. He says that what he told me was that the AMD is probably better for graphics in that it has a part of the processor dedicated to this. But I may have got that wrong too. Senile dementia setting in


I think the advantage is that AMD now own ATi (the graphics card manufacturer) so they are now building compeonents to compliment each other. This ATM isn't a big benefit but in the future it *could* give them the edge over intel in the world of gaming...


----------



## Silver (Aug 23, 2006)

AMD, Intel, AMD, Intel. Give a couple months they all going to be outdate, lol...never ending cycle lol


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

rmorgan84 said:


> I think the advantage is that AMD now own ATi (the graphics card manufacturer) so they are now building compeonents to compliment each other. This ATM isn't a big benefit but in the future it *could* give them the edge over intel in the world of gaming...


Their new AM2+ socket motherboards with 790G chipset are very good value for money with the onboard graphics equal to that of an HD 3450 which can be used in a crossfire sort of mode with the integrated graphics. Plug in a cheap X2 and some RAM and you have a brilliant PC for the money.

Have you heard anything towards this "fusion" chip that AMD were working on?


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

jamest said:


> Their new AM2+ socket motherboards with 790G chipset are very good value for money with the onboard graphics equal to that of an HD 3450 which can be used in a crossfire sort of mode with the integrated graphics. Plug in a cheap X2 and some RAM and you have a brilliant PC for the money.
> 
> Have you heard anything towards this "fusion" chip that AMD were working on?


I don't hold much hope for it to be honest, it may have application in budget and small form factor machines but the idea just seems flawed to me.


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

rmorgan84 said:


> I don't hold much hope for it to be honest, it may have application in budget and small form factor machines but the idea just seems flawed to me.


I think I read up that they had a working version for mobile phones etc but don't know if these came in to production.

The idea seems perfect for an HTPC. In most cases either the CPU or GPU is in use at one time and aren't running at the same time.


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

yeah but heat will be an issue.


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

rmorgan84 said:


> yeah but heat will be an issue.


Well that will be down to how small they can get the die. Obviously it wouldn't be for pure power for gaming but video etc doesn't really use that much, even HD video doesn't require that much.


----------



## Zetec-SS (Jun 8, 2007)

if you want to build an absolute monster PC get Intel and by that i mean 3.0+ Dual Core or Quad core proecessor. if not then AMD is by far the best value for money.

i've always bought AMD.

people keep saying Intel are way infront of AMD, and yes they are with regards to how much faster their processors are...i think AMD don't sell anything higher then 2.8 quad core or something whereas Intel have probably got a 3.5 quadcore processor.

but who is going to spend 500 quid on a processor. if you compare an equivalent intel processor with an equiv AMD there is hardly any difference with regards to core speed/temp yet AMD are like 30%+ cheaper


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

AMD £55 CPU: X2 5600. Pass Mark Score - 1132

Intel £55 CPU: E5200. Pass Mark Score - 1197

Even at thw low to mid range end Intel still win.


----------



## Zetec-SS (Jun 8, 2007)

rmorgan84 said:


> AMD £55 CPU: X2 5600. Pass Mark Score - 1132
> 
> Intel £55 CPU: E5200. Pass Mark Score - 1197
> 
> Even at thw low to mid range end Intel still win.


i don't believe those benches, they seem favoured to Intel always. they must test for things pentium does faster, like calculations and scenarios that would never occur. IMO of course

AMD 5600 is 2.9ghz
E5200 is 2.5ghz


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

Zetec-SS said:


> i don't believe those benches, they seem favoured to Intel always. they must test for things pentium does faster, like calculations and scenarios that would never occur. IMO of course
> 
> AMD 5600 is 2.9ghz
> E5200 is 2.5ghz


they are pass mark tests so no bias either way and the clock speeds are totally irrelevant.

It's like saying a 3.0 Mondeo is faster than a Evo with a 2.0 litre engine.


----------



## Zetec-SS (Jun 8, 2007)

rmorgan84 said:


> they are pass mark tests so no bias either way and the clock speeds are totally irrelevant.
> 
> It's like saying a 3.0 Mondeo is faster than a Evo with a 2.0 litre engine.


pass mark tests still test a certain way for example maths multiplications or something else that might be similar. they both have 2mb caches too.

it's just i have tried both intel and amd systems and there isn't much of a noticable difference. in my experience the AMD is the better CPU, from mid to low. a pass mark difference of 50 is unnoticable.

AMD are launching the new K10 chip which should put them back on top for high level like there were 1 gen back.


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

yeah but your original point was that AMD do affordable mid range chips and intel don't, when this isn't the case, intel do CPUs that are the same price, but slightly out perform AMD.


----------



## Zetec-SS (Jun 8, 2007)

rmorgan84 said:


> yeah but your original point was that AMD do affordable mid range chips and intel don't, when this isn't the case, intel do CPUs that are the same price, but slightly out perform AMD.


yes i still stand by that statement, AMD do make cheap midrange Cpu's and the equivalent processor for the 5600+ is not a E5200 in my opinion, its an Intel cpu that also has a clock speed of 2.8Ghz.

most benchmarks are a waste of time, it's not an O/S. its just random calculations that are supposed to be "testing" the cpu. those calculations would never be used in O/S. i guarentee.


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

Zetec-SS said:


> yes i still stand by that statement, AMD do make cheap midrange Cpu's and the equivalent processor for the 5600+ is not a E5200 in my opinion, its an Intel cpu that also has a clock speed of 2.8Ghz.
> 
> most benchmarks are a waste of time, it's not an O/S. its just random calculations that are supposed to be "testing" the cpu. those calculations would never be used in O/S. i guarentee.


ok i give up, AMD are better and faster than Intel in every wy and all CPUs should be compared on nothing but clock speed. scientific benchmarks are also useless.

good night.


----------



## Zetec-SS (Jun 8, 2007)

rmorgan84 said:


> ok i give up, AMD are better and faster than Intel in every wy and all CPUs should be compared on nothing but clock speed. scientific benchmarks are also useless.
> 
> good night.


the benches are ridiculous, the only benches worth looking at are GFX benches, you know why? because they test it for things it actually going to be doing i.e playing games, it gets marked on FPS etc.

CPU's should be benched on how fast it loads O/S not calcs it's never going to do.

ok i will say this....if those benches are correct...then Intel sell similar spec CPU's as AMD for similar prices. (low / mid)


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Sorry Zetec-SS but rmorgan84 is correct.

50 points is more or less nothing but Intel are doing low-mid end CPUs now which are just as good/if not better than the AMD equivalents. AMD has lost a lot of ground in recent years.

You can't compare clock speeds directly as a 1.6GHz AMD can equal that of a 2.4GHz Intel. If you compared a 1.6GHz AMD to a 1.6GHz Intel, I am sure AMD would win, but the AMD chip would be labeled 2400+ to show the Intel equivalent speed.


----------



## Zetec-SS (Jun 8, 2007)

jamest said:


> Sorry Zetec-SS but rmorgan84 is correct.
> 
> 50 points is more or less nothing but Intel are doing low-mid end CPUs now which are just as good/if not better than the AMD equivalents. AMD has lost a lot of ground in recent years.
> 
> You can't compare clock speeds directly as a 1.6GHz AMD can equal that of a 2.4GHz Intel. If you compared a 1.6GHz AMD to a 1.6GHz Intel, I am sure AMD would win, but the AMD chip would be labeled 2400+ to show the Intel equivalent speed.


like i said if the benches are correct AMD and Intel so similar Cpu's for similar prices



Zetec-SS said:


> ok i will say this....if those benches are correct...then Intel sell similar spec CPU's as AMD for similar prices. (low / mid)


----------



## timprice (Aug 24, 2007)

Personally, i would always go intel. Not least because the intel chipsets nowadays are unbelievable in terms of speed, and the Core 2 / Core Quad chips are also exceptional, and AMD just frankly doesn't have the technology nor the funds to compete anymore.

I'm going to go all "teenage gamer" on you now, but Intel FTW!!!


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Zetec-SS said:


> like i said if the benches are correct AMD and Intel so similar Cpu's for similar prices


Didn't see that line


----------



## Phil H (May 14, 2006)

thanks for the help everyone going to go for an Intel Core 2 Quad, not sure which one as yet with the ASUS P5Q Deluxe motherboard.


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

Q6600 is your best bang for buck, it's a bit long in the tooth compared to some of the newer models but unless you spend half your life video editing or making 3d models etc then it's not worth paying for anything faster.


----------



## Zetec-SS (Jun 8, 2007)

wouldn't it be better to get a 3.0Ghz X2? seeing as most software doesn't even take advantage of dual core yet let alone quad core. 

i decided to get a 3.0Ghz Dual (OverClocked to 3.4Ghz ) for now £60 and when software etc progresses and then see what is the best upgrade to go for when the times. upgrading mid range more often is better then upgrading with high spec parts less often IMO. Q6600 is ace though.


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

Zetec-SS said:


> wouldn't it be better to get a 3.0Ghz X2? seeing as most software doesn't even take advantage of dual core yet let alone quad core.
> 
> i decided to get a 3.0Ghz Dual (OverClocked to 3.4Ghz ) for now £60 and when software etc progresses and then see what is the best upgrade to go for when the times. upgrading mid range more often is better then upgrading with high spec parts less often IMO. Q6600 is ace though.


I personally would go for the Q6600 as thereare now quite a few software companies gearing up for multi core CPU (be they dual,tri, quad or whatever else is round the corner).

The new version of photoshop is one example.


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Zetec-SS said:


> wouldn't it be better to get a 3.0Ghz X2? seeing as most software doesn't even take advantage of dual core yet let alone quad core.
> 
> i decided to get a 3.0Ghz Dual (OverClocked to 3.4Ghz ) for now £60 and when software etc progresses and then see what is the best upgrade to go for when the times. upgrading mid range more often is better then upgrading with high spec parts less often IMO. Q6600 is ace though.


The future is bright, the future is quad...

Buy for a certain degree to the future and now just now, a lot of software will utilise all cores.


----------



## SuperchargedLlama (Apr 25, 2008)

Something Quadcore by Intel is the way, and 4gb of Ram.


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

4GB is soooooooooo 2007! 8Gb is where it's at now


----------



## Bo2007 (Apr 3, 2007)

amd used to be one to go for with the Athlon but the Core 2 duo kicks its ass and with the imminent i7, who knows how far the gap will be


----------



## Bo2007 (Apr 3, 2007)

rmorgan84 said:


> 4GB is soooooooooo 2007! 8Gb is where it's at now


Only on 64bit OS tho....


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

Bo2007 said:


> Only on 64bit OS tho....


you mean there are still people using 32 bit????


----------



## Bo2007 (Apr 3, 2007)

PCs dont ship out as 64 bit plus only a hand full of progs run and benifit from 64bit threading which is annoying


----------



## Phil H (May 14, 2006)

rmorgan84 said:


> you mean there are still people using 32 bit????


are you running Vista 64 bit?

I just want to play farcry 2 with no fuss and future COD games.


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

Phil H said:


> are you running Vista 64 bit?
> 
> I just want to play farcry 2 with no fuss and future COD games.


I don't do much gaming to be honest, mostly just photoshop work. But yeah i am using vista 64 for the moment.


----------



## Norman (Sep 5, 2006)

Intel without a doubt


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Phil H said:


> are you running Vista 64 bit?
> 
> I just want to play farcry 2 with no fuss and future COD games.


I found Vista 64 bit more reliable that XP 64 bit.

BTW Far Cry 2 is pretty good, haven't play much of it yet, but runs better than Crysis and looks better in places. You can tell it has been made with the console in mind though.


----------

