Age old debate AMD vs Intel

[Imager]

ok, narrowed it down to two options for my new PC - which CPU to get for a lot of video/movie burning and gaming, lotsa multitasking.

AMD Phenom?II X4 940 Quad-Core

or

Intel® Core? 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz 1333FSB 12MB L2 Cache 64-bit

I go new about every 4yrs or so.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: Imager
ok, narrowed it down to two options for my new PC - which CPU to get for a lot of video/movie burning and gaming, lotsa multitasking.

AMD Phenom?II X4 940 Quad-Core

or

Intel® Core? 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz 1333FSB 12MB L2 Cache 64-bit

I go new about every 4yrs or so.

Read AT review.

If you can afford Core i7, that would be the way to go if you want to keep the same system for 4 years.

The Q9550 is a bit faster than the PhII X4 940.

The PhII X4 940 is cheaper than the Q9550.

You could get the X4 940, and an AM3 motherboard, and DDR3 memory, and have a future-upgradeable platform. The question is, will there ever be an AM3-compatible CPU that is faster than the top S775 CPU (Q9650)? I doubt it, but who knows?

Edit: If you plan on using an aftermarket cooler, Ewiz has the PhII X4 920 oem for $175.

Edit #2: AMD is introducing another PhII model this month, so you might want to wait a little longer, to see if the newer model interests you, or drives prices down on current PhII's.

 

[Imager]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: Imager
ok, narrowed it down to two options for my new PC - which CPU to get for a lot of video/movie burning and gaming, lotsa multitasking.

AMD Phenom?II X4 940 Quad-Core

or

Intel® Core? 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz 1333FSB 12MB L2 Cache 64-bit

I go new about every 4yrs or so.

Read AT review.

If you can afford Core i7, that would be the way to go if you want to keep the same system for 4 years.

The Q9550 is a bit faster than the PhII X4 940.

The PhII X4 940 is cheaper than the Q9550.

You could get the X4 940, and an AM3 motherboard, and DDR3 memory, and have a future-upgradeable platform. The question is, will there ever be an AM3-compatible CPU that is faster than the top S775 CPU (Q9650)? I doubt it, but who knows?

Edit: If you plan on using an aftermarket cooler, Ewiz has the PhII X4 920 oem for $175.

Edit #2: AMD is introducing another PhII model this month, so you might want to wait a little longer, to see if the newer model interests you, or drives prices down on current PhII's.

Thanks for the quick reply. I seriously looked into the Core i7 and wanted to go that route, however that put me at about $300-400+ more then what I was able to price the other two at. Actually I think the AMD actually ended up being about $500 or so less, cause that was even about $200 less then the Q9550. I could easily wait another month or so - no biggie on that. Just trying to really narrow it down.

Main current PC (in sig) that I wanted to pass down is now farked up and I need to spend some cash to fix that up which makes the above purchase that much tighter.

 

[deimos3428]

I went back and forth on this choice for weeks, eventually settling on Phenom II due to cost/upgrade path considerations. (Full disclosure: I ended up even cheaper and got the X3 710, which I plan on replacing when prices drop a bit more, and spent the savings on a much better video card.) If you don't tend to upgrade your systems and have a bit more cash to work with, I'd go with the Core 2 for the performance edge.

At this point a Phenom II system has a slightly better upgrade path than a Core 2. It probably won't matter for a while, but if significantly better AM3 processors come out, they'll be backward compatible with your AM2+ board and DDR2. (If you decide later on that DDR3 is a must-have, you'll need a new AM3 motherboard as well.)

But you won't be able to replace a Core 2 9550 with anything significantly better without also replacing the motherboard/memory, because the i7's are Intel's future.
.

 

[Cogman]

As far as upgradability goes, I would consider an AMD based system. Socket 775 is basically dead now that nehalem has been released, so don't expect to see new cpus for a mother board of that type.

The PII makes a strong showing for a reasonable price, and as far as I've heard it overclocks pretty well. Barring that my recommendation goes to Nehalem for raw speed. It is the multimedia king right now.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Imager
Thanks for the quick reply. I seriously looked into the Core i7 and wanted to go that route, however that put me at about $300-400+ more then what I was able to price the other two at. Actually I think the AMD actually ended up being about $500 or so less, cause that was even about $200 less then the Q9550. I could easily wait another month or so - no biggie on that. Just trying to really narrow it down.

Main current PC (in sig) that I wanted to pass down is now farked up and I need to spend some cash to fix that up which makes the above purchase that much tighter.

You can't go wrong on either the Intel or AMD rig if you plan to keep all the hardware with no upgrades for four years. If you think you might be persuaded to upgrade a CPU at a later date, then the Intel platform is dead because it is completely being replaced with a new CPU/socket in the fall of this year. AMD has ensured the AM3 CPU's are backwards compatible with the AM2+ boards so there is still some room to grow on the AMD platform.

You could even go with a cheap PII X3 like the 710 for $125 on a AM3 platform and later upgrade to a nice quad when the prices come down and still run the latest platform from AMD with DDR3 memory. Then you can put any money saved now back for a AM3 CPU upgrade in 6 months when the i5 forces these cpu's from AMD to become dirt cheap to compete.

 

[Imager]

WOW - quick replies - I'm loving it! 🙂

There will be no upgradability from my current system...for me at least. Just to replace any parts needed to get it back up and working.

This is for an entire new PC. Already budgeted and leaning towards the 4850 1gb or the 4870 512mb vid card for the system. I won't be able to upgrade in the 6 months or so time frame...this is a budget for here and now. Any upgrade to this system will have to be done in 1+ yr if that.
Love the good news of the new AM3 being backwards compatible. They might actually sway me towards the AMD even more then.

I won't be using crossfire now or the future...anyone got a recommended mobo?

 

[soonerproud]

I won't be using crossfire now or the future...anyone got a recommended mobo?

I just ordered this one here! You want to make certain you use a AMD chipset since they tend to give you more bang for your buck and they do a better job of supporting the new AM3 processors.

 

[OCGuy]

Q9550 @ 3.8ghz and call it a day.

Buy for what is better now, not an "upgrade path". That is the most rediculous logic I have ever heard, to be honest.

If you end up keeping the exact system for 3 years, is it a consolation that you could have upgraded to a new chip?

If the "upgrade" chip is only 10% faster, you could have had that 10% already anyway.


To be honest you wouldnt go wrong with either one, just reach your conclusion for the right reason (Price, performance, power usage, etc) 😛

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: OCguy
Q9550 @ 3.8ghz and call it a day.

Buy for what is better now, not an "upgrade path". That is the most rediculous logic I have ever heard, to be honest.

If you end up keeping the exact system for 3 years, is it a consolation that you could have upgraded to a new chip?

If the "upgrade" chip is only 10% faster, you could have had that 10% already anyway.


To be honest you wouldnt go wrong with either one, just reach your conclusion for the right reason (Price, performance, power usage, etc) 😛

There is nothing ridiculous about saving a bunch of cash now and upgrading to a better CPU later when prices come down to Earth.

That Q9550 is going to cost when fully configured more than $200 higher than the PHII X3 I just ordered which also OC's easily to 3.5 GHZ on air with a decent cooler. benchmarks show that there is little difference in gaming performance between a PHII X3 and a Q9550 but the price difference is a whole lot higher than any slight performance difference between the two processors. That difference in price vs performance value is why I can say buy a X3 today and still upgrade to a cheap quad in 6 months to a year and still come out ahead of a current Intel platform and breathe new life into that system.

I did the exact same thing with this system, going from a single core A64 to a X2 and buying me 2 more years on the platform before upgrading and saving me a lot of cash on full platform upgrades.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: OCguy
Q9550 @ 3.8ghz and call it a day.

Buy for what is better now, not an "upgrade path". That is the most rediculous logic I have ever heard, to be honest.

Not "rediculous" at all. Just ask folks who bought S478 late in it's life, or S754 just months prior to S939. If there were confidence that AMD could ramp up PhII's to 4 Ghz or higher, that would be a good argument for going AM3. That's not likely the case, though.

If the "upgrade" chip is only 10% faster, you could have had that 10% already anyway.

This is the salient point, and one I had made in my reply to the OP. It's doubtful, IMO, that any future chip for AM3 will be faster than the fastest 775.

To be honest you wouldnt go wrong with either one

I agree.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: Imager
WOW - quick replies - I'm loving it! 🙂

There will be no upgradability from my current system...for me at least. Just to replace any parts needed to get it back up and working.

This is for an entire new PC. Already budgeted and leaning towards the 4850 1gb or the 4870 512mb vid card for the system. I won't be able to upgrade in the 6 months or so time frame...this is a budget for here and now. Any upgrade to this system will have to be done in 1+ yr if that.
Love the good news of the new AM3 being backwards compatible. They might actually sway me towards the AMD even more then.

I won't be using crossfire now or the future...anyone got a recommended mobo?

I'm partial to Biostar's "T" series motherboards. I've been using them for several years with no complaints. Reliable (solid caps), good overclockers, in my experience.

Asus, Foxconn and AsRock all have well-regarded motherboards, also.

Lots of people have been buying Gigabyte, but I've been reading about many problems with recent products. This might be due to Gigabyte's horrible customer service.

 

[aigomorla]

If your going to new every 4yrs grab an i7 and call it a day.

If your an intensive gamer, grab a AMD and beef up your GPU sector with the extra funds. (build a beefed up spyder platform).

If your an intensive encoder, nothing will top a 8 threaded i7 machine. <-- well my 16threaded gainestown (neha-EP) machine will wipe the floor off that one.

I wouldnt even bother with yorkfields as of this moment. LGA775 is a dying platform, and will most likely get wiped out once LGA1156 rolls out.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

In my opinion, it isn't wise to try and build a computer to last you 3-4 years. The only time someone could have done that without shelling out major dough was s939 with the dual cores. A core i7 is nice, but you can get near indentical gaming performance with a phenom X4/Q9xxx. I would shoot for a two year lifespan and spend half the $$. Think about it, four years ago i had a pentium 4 2.26ghz with 256mb pc2100 and a Geforce ti 4200. Four years from now this hardware will sound much more ridiculous then that pentium 4 is now.

I'd get a Phenom 2 X3 and a 4850 and be done with it.

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: Scholzpdx
In my opinion, it isn't wise to try and build a computer to last you 3-4 years. The only time someone could have done that without shelling out major dough was s939 with the dual cores. A core i7 is nice, but you can get near indentical gaming performance with a phenom X4/Q9xxx. .

Even the E8400, 8500, and 8600 dual core chips oust Phenom II X4 chips in many gaming situations. Many games are *very* dependent on clockspeed.

 

[Spoelie]

Not really, the older the game, the more single threaded performance matters yes. But even in those the PII is fast enough. In newer games, more cores are starting to show nice gains (e.g. http://www.pcgameshardware.com...essors/Reviews/?page=2 )

I'd go for the phenom, and put the extra 200 in a nice videocard/motherboard/quiet cooling setup

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Originally posted by: Imager

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: Imager
ok, narrowed it down to two options for my new PC - which CPU to get for a lot of video/movie burning and gaming, lotsa multitasking.

AMD Phenom?II X4 940 Quad-Core

or

Intel® Core? 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz 1333FSB 12MB L2 Cache 64-bit

I go new about every 4yrs or so.

Read AT review.

If you can afford Core i7, that would be the way to go if you want to keep the same system for 4 years.

The Q9550 is a bit faster than the PhII X4 940.

The PhII X4 940 is cheaper than the Q9550.

You could get the X4 940, and an AM3 motherboard, and DDR3 memory, and have a future-upgradeable platform. The question is, will there ever be an AM3-compatible CPU that is faster than the top S775 CPU (Q9650)? I doubt it, but who knows?

Edit: If you plan on using an aftermarket cooler, Ewiz has the PhII X4 920 oem for $175.

Edit #2: AMD is introducing another PhII model this month, so you might want to wait a little longer, to see if the newer model interests you, or drives prices down on current PhII's.

Thanks for the quick reply. I seriously looked into the Core i7 and wanted to go that route, however that put me at about $300-400+ more then what I was able to price the other two at. Actually I think the AMD actually ended up being about $500 or so less, cause that was even about $200 less then the Q9550. I could easily wait another month or so - no biggie on that. Just trying to really narrow it down.

Main current PC (in sig) that I wanted to pass down is now farked up and I need to spend some cash to fix that up which makes the above purchase that much tighter.

Core i7- $200
mobo- $170 AR
ram 6gb ddr3- 56 AR

How is that expensive? In fact, it's barely more than a Core 2. People need to let go of Core 2 and move on. Hate to break it but Core 2 is DEAD.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Imager
I go new about every 4yrs or so.

Given this information you really ought to consider heeding the advice to hold off a few months until such time that an i7 system is cost viable for your budget.

PhII may be more upgradeable but if you aren't updating your rigs but for every four years then all the upgrade-ability in the world still means nothing to you.

Ask yourself in three years from now when you still have to live with your rig for another year would you rather have 4 threads with less bandwidth to the cores or 8 threads with more bandwidth to the cores?

(not too mention that the power-consumption of an i7 platform is superior to a PhII rig, something of relevance to a person who will be using the system for four years and is cost conscience/sensitive to the point of not being able to step up to a nehalem at today's pricepoints)

 

[carniver]

Core i7- $200
mobo- $170 AR
ram 6gb ddr3- 56 AR

How is that expensive? In fact, it's barely more than a Core 2. People need to let go of Core 2 and move on. Hate to break it but Core 2 is DEAD.

Where did you find those prices?

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: carniver

Core i7- $200
mobo- $170 AR
ram 6gb ddr3- 56 AR

How is that expensive? In fact, it's barely more than a Core 2. People need to let go of Core 2 and move on. Hate to break it but Core 2 is DEAD.

Where did you find those prices?

The i7 is a today-only sale @ Micro Center. From what I've read, though, it's no longer available. However, you can often get them from Micro Center for $229.

I've seen some mobo's recently for $170 AR. If you trust mail-in-rebates, then not bad.

 

[edplayer]

on the internet

Microcenter is selling the 920 for $200 today only

How is the AMD $200 cheaper than a Q9550 when you can buy one for $232

 

[taltamir]

take your budget, lets call it X dollars. Put 2x/3 in the bank. use 1x/3 to buy a system now. Every 18 months use another 1x/3 to upgrade it. While your system today will be weakter than if you had spend X dollars buying it.
The first upgrade after 18 months will give you a more powerful system! and the second upgrade 3 years from now will be SEVERAL TIMES FASTER than a system costing X dollars today.

Upgrading every 4 years is plain stupid unless your budget is in the double digits (aka, buy a 50$ used ancient computer every few years; today it would be a p3/4 or an athlonXP based machine with 512mb of ram)

 

[konakona]

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: Scholzpdx
In my opinion, it isn't wise to try and build a computer to last you 3-4 years. The only time someone could have done that without shelling out major dough was s939 with the dual cores. A core i7 is nice, but you can get near indentical gaming performance with a phenom X4/Q9xxx. .

Even the E8400, 8500, and 8600 dual core chips oust Phenom II X4 chips in many gaming situations. Many games are *very* dependent on clockspeed.

did you get a chance to read AT's latest article on PII / C2Q / i7 gaming in realistic scenarios? their conclusion seems to point to the exact opposite of what you are saying... in that article, PII let C2Q take the avg fps but felt "smoother" in actual gameplay.

I thought 3.5+ghz most people are getting with x3/x4 is enough for current and imminent games...

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: taltamir
take your budget, lets call it X dollars. Put 2x/3 in the bank. use 1x/3 to buy a system now. Every 18 months use another 1x/3 to upgrade it. While your system today will be weakter than if you had spend X dollars buying it.
The first upgrade after 18 months will give you a more powerful system! and the second upgrade 3 years from now will be SEVERAL TIMES FASTER than a system costing X dollars today.

Upgrading every 4 years is plain stupid unless your budget is in the double digits (aka, buy a 50$ used ancient computer every few years; today it would be a p3/4 or an athlonXP based machine with 512mb of ram)

The less $$ the OP has available now, the less likely that strategy is able to work effectively. Let's say the OP has $1000 to spend. What can he get that is current for $333.33? OP has already stated that he's building a new PC.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Imager
I go new about every 4yrs or so.

Given this information you really ought to consider heeding the advice to hold off a few months until such time that an i7 system is cost viable for your budget.

PhII may be more upgradeable but if you aren't updating your rigs but for every four years then all the upgrade-ability in the world still means nothing to you.

Ask yourself in three years from now when you still have to live with your rig for another year would you rather have 4 threads with less bandwidth to the cores or 8 threads with more bandwidth to the cores?

(not too mention that the power-consumption of an i7 platform is superior to a PhII rig, something of relevance to a person who will be using the system for four years and is cost conscience/sensitive to the point of not being able to step up to a nehalem at today's pricepoints)

Actually, if you look at AT comparison of PhII & i7 power consumption, they are nearly identical. The i7, of course, would save a bit of $$ because it can accomplish more ops/watt than PhII. 3D rendering, maths, video conversions, etc. would be "cheaper" with the i7, day-to-day time stuff wouldn't be effected, I would think.