Do high end user use AMD instead of Intel?

[soccerballtux]

My thread usually is longer but this question is pretty simple. I been doing massive and I mean massive amount of research on both these companies and still have more to learn.

In general, can you guys give me a overview of the pro and con of the top CPU of each company. I want a CPU that will give me the maximum performance efficiency at the best possible price for my build. Even though I don't have a budget, I still want to save as much money as possible and avoid "overkill" or extra features that I don't need or ever use.


Thanks

there's really no beating AMD's FX-83xx line of CPUs for $120. I got mine for $80. It's 3x faster at video encoding than the similarly priced Intel chips, and can hit games I care about at 60fps. With DX12, it'll do even better.

 

[Abwx]

I'm sure pro-AMD blogs will be happy to test unplayable 1080p settings with filters that might (or might not) give AMD a tiny advantage, meanwhile the rest of the world recognizes that Intel has the best CPU+iGPU combination right now. .

Lol, the chip wasnt even really tested...

How do you know that the games on all thoses graphs are playable..?.

What are the minimum framerates..?..

 

[frozentundra123456]

Even for a cheap rig, a budget cpu and a discrete card offers a much better value than any APU. The only place an APU for gaming makes sense on the desktop is in a small form factor type device.

Laptops are another story, but unfortunately, in a TDP limited scenario, an APU or igp is even less adequate than on the desktop.

 

[TeknoBug]

@TeknoBug - I just read about that, disappointing there is no competition from AMD. Would your consider the i5 4690K to be high end?

No I don't consider i5 4690K high end but it's a top choice for most needs on desktop use. Start getting into Extreme socket 2011 then that's high end, AMD had Opteron but that's not really relevant anymore and they never really performed that great.

 

[CHADBOGA]

How do the i5 compare to an i7? I'm not talking about specific cpu like the i5 4690K which is the most recommended versus the i7 4970K but just in general.

Is i7 needed for gaming or is i5 just as good? I don't plan on doing anything but gaming, meaning no video render, editing, recording, etc...

Will the i5 4690K be future proof for future GPU? Meaning it won't bottleneck the newer GPU years later?

I also want to know if i7 mean it newer than i5, or is that not the case?

For your circumstances that focus on wanting a great gaming CPU that will be paired with a discrete video card, Intel's i5-4690K is far & away your best choice right now.

Not only is it more than enough right now, by overclocking it if you choose to, you will get further longevity out of it(provided you don't go crazy & overclock to extremes).

Nothing in AMD's current line up is remotely close.

Some very dishonest people might try and deceive you on this point by showing you GPU limited benchmarks, so beware of them.

However like Shintai said, in August, an even faster version of the top i5 will be available, so you might be wise to see what the pricing will be on that(most likely priced very similar to current i5).

 

[el etro]

High end user uses whatever performs better.

 

[Abwx]

Nothing in AMD's current line up is remotely close.

Only in games the i5 will be better, for applications the FX is better.

And much less expensive.

 

[CHADBOGA]

Only in games the i5 will be better,

Which is what I said and what the OP said he values.

What's more, in applications, it becomes a mixed bag as to who is on top.

 

[2is]

Only in games the i5 will be better, for applications the FX is better.

And much less expensive.

Only in games? You should really stop giving advise. It's clear you have no idea what you're talking about.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i5-4670k-4670-4570-4430_4.html#sect1

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7963/...iew-core-i7-4790-i5-4690-and-i3-4360-tested/3

Hardly a mixed bag either.

 

[Abwx]

Which is what I said and what the OP said he values.

What's more, in applications, it becomes a mixed bag as to who is on top.

Ok, i thought that it was a general statement...

 

[Silverforce11]

I haven't had an AMD CPU in my rigs for a long time, ever since the Athlon/X2 days.

Games run better on less but more powerful cores, that's just how it is. Maybe DX12 will change things but so far, I rather pay a bit extra for a decent i5.

APU wise, before the latest Broadwell Iris Pro, Intel is rubbish and priced higher, I've built a few AMD A10 rigs, they do the job nicely for cheap. Sure, a bit more and a dGPU would be better, but my clients don't need it. As long as it runs LOL, Dota, CS, Starcraft II etc..

 

[Abwx]

Only in games? You should really stop giving advise. It's clear you have no idea what you're talking about.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i5-4670k-4670-4570-4430_4.html#sect1

That apply rather to someone who use Xbitlab as reference..

You are aware that Anton shilov massacred AMD as much as he could once they stopped sending him some gear..?.

Heck, he didnt even deny that he received his 290/290X right from Nvidia, and also look at the massacre of Kabini while BT was praised, rewarded a few time later by the full Intel CPU line up...


Lol....and of course the "review" start with a series of Sysmark, an Intel troll bench biased at will, to the point that AMD made a public statement that it was rigged.

Let s see what more serious reviewer, not to say unbiaised, have to say about it, and with real softs used by professional people, not some 3D particle and other WebXPRT pseudo benches...

http://www.hardware.fr/focus/99/amd-fx-8370e-fx-8-coeurs-95-watts-test.html

 

[exar333]

Right now, most of AMD's 8-core CPUs are priced between Intel's i3 (2 core) and i5 (4 core) CPUs. In many cases even Intel's 2-core CPUs will outperform AMD's 8-core chips because not many day-to-day average user type activities really use more than 2-4 cores, and Intel's cores are 60% or more faster per clock. Intel also has 6 and 8 core chips available, though at much higher cost than AMD's 8 core CPUs. Not only are Intel's cores significantly faster than AMD's, they also use less power to get the same amount of work done, and produce less heat.

AMD has 2 niches, and neither of them is the ultra-high-end:
1) For scientific computing and perhaps video encoding and compression, AMD's 8 core chips are generally faster than Intel's i5's and a little cheaper, making them a good value, though they still don't usually compete with Intel's 4 core i7's, much less then 6 and 8 core models. You'll end up paying more for electricity every month though, and if you live in an area where electricity is expensive, the AMD chip will probably still be more expensive to own overall.

2) AMD's APUs (<$140) have faster integrated graphics than Intel's CPUs. The CPU portion is adequately fast for the typical user and the integrated GPU able to run more games at a reasonable speed than with Intel's integrated graphics. However, there are many cases where a cheaper Intel CPU and a discrete graphics card will be priced similarly (slightly more) but are significantly faster in both CPU and GPU tasks. Therefore, APUs make the most sense where you need something small-form-factor and can't take a full sized graphics card.

You generally don't see many new PCs with AMD CPUs at all, unless that person is simply curious or has brand loyalty.

This. Intel is better 95% of the time, but there are some niche applications that run as well or better for AMD. That said, there aren't many uses where AMD is actually 'unusable' though, just not as good. That's ignoring price...

On the high end, there are very few reasons not to use Intel.

 

[escrow4]

there's really no beating AMD's FX-83xx line of CPUs for $120. I got mine for $80. It's 3x faster at video encoding than the similarly priced Intel chips, and can hit games I care about at 60fps. With DX12, it'll do even better.

$80 and outclassed by a Haswell i3. And not many games can crack 60FPS minimums. Its a false economy. You buy an i5 even locked and an H97 mobo and you'll have a platform that isn't obsolete for one and won't suffer whenever you run anything remotely single threaded on it.

 

[Roland00Address]

That s deliberate misleading, only Intel integrated GPUs are not good enough to play games at acceptable FPS or settings, it s not like Intel is, or rather was, only 10-15% behind and that both brand are struglling.

You misread what I wrote. Or you are being misleading on purpose. I can not tell.

There was an important qualifier in what I wrote. AMD CPU over $100 dollars. All you get for spending more than $100 on an AMD apu is better graphics. You get very capable AMD CPUs with similar CPU performance at less than $100 such as the AMD A10 5800k for $90 on new egg and the 860k for $75. Both of these CPUs trade blows with kaveri and kaveri refresh on CPU task. This is because kaveri was a die shrink but by moving to bulk vs soi you actually lost CPU frequency. Now pile driver vs steamroller is also a microarchitecture change but the CPU improvements were mitigated by the frequency loss and thus CPU wise they trade blows. What you get in return is marginally better GPU performance key word being marginal due to the bandwidth limitations of ddr3 being a bottleneck.

In exchange you are paying 40 more for the 7850k vs 5800k, 60 more for 7870k vs 5800k, 55 more for 7850k vs 860k, 75 more for 7870k vs 860k. Well 70 gets you an r7 250 with gddr5. A r7 250 has comparable shader power to kaveri a10s but due to having gddr5 it has 3x the memory bandwidth of ddr3 1600 and 2x the memory bandwidth of ddr3 2400.

Oh it would cost 185 for an 860k and a R7 260x 2gbddr5 but it would be night and day better for gaming vs the 150 7870k in gaming performance.

So like I said before you do not spend more than $100 on an AMD CPU for GPU performance unless you are space limited.


----

So please now apologize for you accused me of being misleading when in actuality you are the one who is being misleading for you are twisting my words.

 

[WelshBloke]

Quick threadjack

I'm on a Q6600@3ghz. I don't really game much anymore and I'm happy with its performance apart from in one area.

Editing HD video in powerdirecter brings it to its knees.

Any advantage to AMD in this edge case?

I don't want to fork out for one of Intels 8 core monsters (although I'd be more than happy with one!)

 

[TheELF]

Let s see what more serious reviewer, not to say unbiaised, have to say about it, and with real softs used by professional people, not some 3D particle and other WebXPRT pseudo benches...

http://www.hardware.fr/focus/99/amd-fx-8370e-fx-8-coeurs-95-watts-test.html

Yes,let's please.

So at the same frequencies amd needs twice the amount of cores to get the same amount of work done...
Fx-8370e 3,3Ghz 95W vs I5-4670k 3,4Ghz 84W = same results

and after that it only gets worse for AMDs ,raising watts to 125 and freq to 4Ghz only yields 15% speed and going to a whopping 220W and 4,7Ghz only gets you 27% more, and that's always relative to the 4 core 4 threads I5 at stock.

Not that we where discussing software in this thread,we where talking about games where even the ridiculously power hungry 9590 is 15% slower than the I5...


(and intel's TDP always includes use of the igpu where the fxs need all the TDP for the CPU)

 

[happy medium]

I want a CPU that will give me the maximum performance efficiency at the best possible price for my build

That's Intel all the way bud.

 

[B-Riz]

Personal experience here:

If you have the money and care about max perf in all benchmarks, get Intel.

If you are on a budget, get the newest AMD releases (8320e or 8370e).

I did not buy Intel until I got out of college and had $$$ to get the dankest hardware.

When I build a new *basic* computer for someone, I go AMD, at least A6 7400k, knowing that the BIOS needs some tweaking for best power usage / performance.

Those chips cannot be beat for the features, and with 4 - 8 GB of RAM and an SSD, I noticed no difference in usage between that and my i7 for all everyday tasks. ( I did not have time to test BF4 on it, was late in delivering it, so, once Windows was on it, back to the customer it went! )

 

[Silverforce11]

The CPU of most builds is the most longest lived, its worth an extra $50-100 just to get one that's "future-proof" and honestly, AMD's FX series is fail for gaming, too power inefficient, poor single thread performance and Intel's prices around $250 for an i5, pretty much nails it for great bang for buck.

It's not like the GPU situation where a $280 R290X is within 10% of a $600 980. Intel is very price aggressive on the i3 and i5 lines.

I find it very difficult to defend AMD's FX CPU because there's nothing good about them. :/ In fact you shouldn't defend it, expect better. Hopefully they've finally learnt and Zen lives to the hype.

 

[Gikaseixas]

high end user = Intel i7 end of story

 

[Gikaseixas]

I find it very difficult to defend AMD's FX CPU because there's nothing good about them

Bull, they're still decent for some tasks. Their biggest downfall is slow core performance and high power consumption for today's standards.

 

[Silverforce11]

They are decent for some task, but an i5 for not much more is good for all tasks. There lies the problem, for gaming, Intel is just vastly superior.

 

[TeknoBug]

I sold my i7 3770K PC to pay bills and I'm moving to a different city in a couple weeks, I miss that machine and it ran circles around anything else I have, I also had an FX 8320E but my feelings with it wasn't as strong as with the i7. I'm into power efficient builds now so it'll be a while before I build another i7 PC.

 

[Sweepr]

I sold my i7 3770K PC to pay bills and I'm moving to a different city in a couple weeks, I miss that machine and it ran circles around anything else I have, I also had an FX 8320E but my feelings with it wasn't as strong as with the i7. I'm into power efficient builds now so it'll be a while before I build another i7 PC.

I'm planning to build a power-efficient PC #2 to use in summer and when I don't need the horsepower of Haswell-E. The leaked 35W Core i5 6600T/i7 6700T (Skylake) might be able to offer Core i5 4670K/i7 4770K CPU performance at much lower power, I'll definitely keep an eye on them.