AMD to Intel Converts: Are you glad you made the switch?

[Boonesmi]

intel -> amd -> intel -> amd
they both make excellet cpu's!!

ive used so many systems over the last couple years some intel, and some amd.... personally i prefer amd

 

[Syndicate]

*thinking back*...

My first personal PC was a Intel Pentium 120MHZ. However I've been usin' 'em since the days of 386s, my dad was big into PCs (and still is). Anyway that P120 was my first overclock...(133MHZ!!). Fine processor. I upgraded to...a P200MMX. Fine processor, ran at 233MHZ! From there my cash decreased at the parents stopped affording my upgrades so it was to a Celeron 333 (back when the 300A@450 was so popular), but I got a good deal on it and hoped for 333@500. It never happened despite the ultra popular Alpha heatsink 😉. Got her up to 333@416, running on 83mhz FSB. Always ran fine, infact on a 440BX chipset. From there I upgraded to Celeron 566@850, its life was short as the big Athlon amazement was going on and I decided to jump on the wagon when the Socket A's came out. I went to a 750MHZ (slower in the MHZ) Tbird, on a VIA KT133 chipset. I liked the fact that VIA was always upgrading their drivers and really never had problems with them, but I kind of realized it was just because they made a pretty crappy product...Got that Tbird stable @950MHZ...could never get it to the magic 1GHZ. My current system is a XP1700+@2300MHZ. $59.99 @ SVC.com for hundreds of dollars worth of intel power, running on a 8RDA+. I spent litterally months deciding between Intel and AMD. Mainly between a 2.0C P4 or a XP1700/2100+ system. I simply couldn't afford a fast intel system, hell I couldn't afford any P4 intel system. So I ended up with another AMD system that beats the pants off any Intel system for the same price, and I have never been happier.

So in the end, I am an AMD fan and will probably remain that way, I like the underdoggs.

However I do not deny, that Intel does have the upperhand in performance, and if I DID have the money...I would have bought that P4 2.0C system.

 

[SlickVic]

I've been back and forth.

Have run both AMD (Duron's, T-Bird's) and Intel (Celerons, PII, PIII) through the years...no problems with either, and had good success OC'ing both.

I've been on the AMD bandwagon for awhile....bottom line (to me)...price...AMD's are a less expensive chip.

 

[dmw16]

I made the intel to amd switch in...I think it was 2000. Before that I had a P166 and then a Celeron 366 @ 550. I made the switch (to a 900Mhz T-bird) mainly because at that time the AMDs were smokin the intels and the prices couldnt have been better. But initially I was regretting the switch. I had a lot of issuses with stability....heat and chipset related mainly. Then, after that got ironed out I have been very happy with my AMDs. Since the 900 I bought an 1800+ and just recently a 1700+ (for oc'ing purposes). Although I have considered returning to intel. I mean the benchmarks are great, but the costs are prohibitive. So for the time being I think I am an AMD guy. Because at the end of the day 98fps vs 93fps isnt worth an extra $200 to me.
-doug

 

[Cerb]

(double post)

 

[Cerb]

Asus didn't help on the Intel side. From OEM Intel Asus boards, got a sour taste of Intel.
So my first upgrade of more than doubling speed was to a Duron 800 & K7T Pro2...it died! Ahh!
Almost gave up AMD, then my father and myself checked (we got the same board :-/) prices. Ouch!
So he got his board that died almost certainly from the PSU, after which he got a decent PSU and Iwill KK266.
I got the most expensive board I have yet to think about buying, at $133, a K7 Master (I gave MSI another chance).
Until my stupidity killed the CPU, it served well, and is now in a Mandrake box.
After I burned up the CPU, I got my AK35GT2, as I hadn't heard one bad thing about the KT333 as a chipset, and all good stuff. Well, it has served well, and shuts down if the CPU gets hot 🙂.
Recently worked on a P4 system w/ an Asus P4B266. Once again, a quirky strangely designed Asus board. I might try a P4, and the new P4C finally gets them beating Athlons at all but a few AMD mainstays, like AutoCAD. But with a 2600+ at $100, not any time soon--and definitely not Asus.

 

[NesuD]

Originally posted by: orion7144
I used to have all AMD (5) systems all of them were XP1700 and above. I have been using AMD since the Athlon 750. Since I was able to come accross a P4 2.26 last year my whole attitude has changed. I now only have one system left to switch over to the P4. The overall feel of the system is much smoother. No more Via chipset headaches. No more RMA'ing a CPU (In the 5 years that I had AMD I RMA'd 4 chips). No more lock ups. Apps like WinRar, Smartpar, DVD encoding and decoding all are way faster on the P4 systems. Bechmarks do not tell the whole story. Who cares what your 3Dmark is if both systems are getting similar FPS. I switched from Intel to AMD based on bechmarks and I will not rely on those again. It's all in how the computer feels and does everyday stuff and with the HT enable cpu's all of the stuff I am running is even faster than on my non HT P4's.

Wow I have personally owned over a dozen Athlons over the last several years and built maybe 50 more for others and have never had to RMA one. To the best of my knowledge every one of them is still chugging along. I have to assume you cracked/chipped or smoked several of them. Incorrect heatsink installation is the users fault not AMD's

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: NesuD

Originally posted by: orion7144
I used to have all AMD (5) systems all of them were XP1700 and above. I have been using AMD since the Athlon 750. Since I was able to come accross a P4 2.26 last year my whole attitude has changed. I now only have one system left to switch over to the P4. The overall feel of the system is much smoother. No more Via chipset headaches. No more RMA'ing a CPU (In the 5 years that I had AMD I RMA'd 4 chips). No more lock ups. Apps like WinRar, Smartpar, DVD encoding and decoding all are way faster on the P4 systems. Bechmarks do not tell the whole story. Who cares what your 3Dmark is if both systems are getting similar FPS. I switched from Intel to AMD based on bechmarks and I will not rely on those again. It's all in how the computer feels and does everyday stuff and with the HT enable cpu's all of the stuff I am running is even faster than on my non HT P4's.

Wow I have personally owned over a dozen Athlons over the last several years and built maybe 50 more for others and have never had to RMA one. To the best of my knowledge every one of them is still chugging along. I have to assume you cracked/chipped or smoked several of them. Incorrect heatsink installation is the users fault not AMD's

I have built over 30 systems with AMD as well. No the CPU's weren't cracked or smoked. If they were AMD would not have RMA'd them. Kind of hard to install the HSF wrong when it's the retail HSF and you have any common sense. Non of my AMD systems wre OC'd either.

 

[CraigRT]

I went from my XP1800+ KT266A setup to a P4 2.4B and I was not happy.

I then sold that a few months later and went to an XP2500+ Barton and a Soltek NForce2 board... couldn't be happier... never using Intel again as far as I can tell.. 😀

 

[BD231]

Been using AMD for a long time, had some headaches with Via chipsets so I gave the 1.6a a try, complete waste of time.

The only difference between using an AMD or Intel system is the name and price. IDE performance was a bit better on the Intel system IMO but hardly worth the price jump.

If you try and pick out anything other than a performance difference between the two companies your just being stubborn or bias.

 

[Naruto]

I am both an AMD and Intel man. I have a willemette *cough* sucks *cough*, and an 1.6a at 2.4ghz which is pretty decent for me. The beauty about AMD is that I paid $56 for a 1800+ and its running now at 2330mhz. It beats the living sh*t out of Intel's 3.06HT in sandra cpu arithmetic.

 

[Duvie]

I am currently Intel as I switched over about 1-1/2 years ago....I generally stay with who is treating me right...At the time AMD was just into xp line and they were dogs at ocing and the northwoods had came out and many were running their 1.6a's at 2.3ghz plus....The rest is history!!!! That 1.6a did 2.74ghz with 1.7v...sold it and added 50 bucks and got a 2.4b that does 3.33ghz max with 1.7v but I run it at 3.24ghz w/ 1.6v.

I run multimedia and a lot of music and video encoding and the fact is Intel is better at those fuctions so at 3.24ghz and 450mhz ddr I don't think amd makes anything to compete with that on those above apps so I wouldn't see a need to change yet...

Cpus are running pretty close right now....I am looking at new mobos with DCDDR mobos and newer SATA HDD's running in raid configurations...

 

[Night201]

Originally posted by: Naruto
I am both an AMD and Intel man. I have a willemette *cough* sucks *cough*, and an 1.6a at 2.4ghz which is pretty decent for me. The beauty about AMD is that I paid $56 for a 1800+ and its running now at 2330mhz. It beats the living sh*t out of Intel's 3.06HT in sandra cpu arithmetic.

That's just 1 test, how about other applications and tests?

 

[Bonesdad]

Originally posted by: clicknext
I switched from Intel to AMD purely because of price, about 2 years ago. I'm perfectly satisfied with AMD, but who knows whether or not I would be just as or more satisfied with Intel... I think it probably doesn't matter that much, the market is pretty competitive right now, and it looks like both companies are spitting out quality hardware. I just go with whichever is most cost effective, right now still AMD in my opinion. (2500 Barton)

Agreed, in MY reality (which is quite similar to most ppls, at least as far as finances) AMD is the way to go. I like performance, but not at Intel's price point. Not to mention the more expensive mobos. When I win the lottery, I may look at Intel, but not till then.

 

[Deskstar]

I have both Intel and AMD. Each fills a specific niche and cost/performance ratio for the applications used most often on each machine. Noise and heat also play a role in the selection.

 

[Y23KC]

I was pretty much amd diehard for a while. Had a duron 600, 750, 800, then amd 1ghz, 1.33ghz, 1.4ghz, 2 different 1900+ tbreds and a dual 1600+ rig for encoding. I then decided to switch to Intel with a 1.8a. It overclocked to 2.6 and was a little faster than my 1900+ overclocked to 1860mhz. Next stop was a 2.53 overclocked to 3ghz, celeron 2ghz oc'd to 3.2ghz for encoding. I've been Intel since going to a 2.4b sl6rz overclocked to 3.4ghz. I sold the celeron rig and went to amd briefly since I didn't encode as much anymore. I had one 1700+ that did 2.1 and a 2100+ that was not a great oc'er that did 2.1 as well. Sold all the amd stuff and have an abit is7 with a 2.4c running at 3.3ghz and an asus p4p800/2.4c doing 3.36ghz.

Sorry for all the confusion above, but my conclusion is amd is good for gaming on a budget, Intel is good for gaming/encoding but with a premium. I prefer Intel myself and won't go AMD again unless the Athlon64 changes my mind 😉

 

[nan0bug]

I can't say for certain if I will switch back to Intel but for now I'm loving AMD. Admittedly, my last rig had a lot of issues, but I think that had more to do with the power supply than anything else. This one I just built I'm working the kinks out of, but I like to push my systems as far as they will go and to hell with the consequences 🙂

I stick to AMD simply because of price. I built my current system for about $400, using a few left over parts from my old system (HD, CD-RW, case, monitor) and it does everything I need it to do and more. Intel makes some great stuff, and I wouldn't mind putting together an Intel box, but what I have will meet my needs for quite a while, and it was very inexpensive.

There are some annoyances with AMD (well, mostly VIA chipsets) but I'm so used to having computers with minor annoyances from both AMD and Intel that they really don't bother me anymore. All my Intel boxes were packard bell, HP, or compaq so obviously I've had my fair share of issues with both types of setups.

My setup is:

8k3a+ ($65 used)
XP 2100+ ($60 used)
Radeon 8500 (300/300, 9100 bios - $80 used)
SK-7 & TT-Smart Fan 2 (~$40)
TT Silent Purepower 420 w/ Active PFC (~$50)
256mb Winbond BH-5 pc3200 (~$40)

After shipping it all came out to about $400

Got it running 200x11 for 2200mhz, it'll go higher but at these speeds why bother. I simply couldn't have built something that performs this well without spending at least $100, probbably $200 more if I would have used intel.

 

[Regs]

If you look at the Rig stats for this community you will notice a lot more people with AMD systems. Mostly because of AMD's prices. A Intel P4 C with HT is good for media encoding and multi tasking junkies, but my AMD Barton is perfect for gaming performance, media playing, and all the stuff I actually use. My system runs perfectly stable, the only thing I do not like about AMD processors is the heat they give off.

High end P4 systems are good for people who do heavy media editing and 3d graphical designs. However if someone just bought a 500 dollar p4 just for bragging rights or maybe a extra 5-10 frames a second in a game should not be allowed to have a bank account.


Maybe I'm just too conservative, but that is my take.