How is AMD better than INTEL in games?

[Jeffreyg4]

Why are AMD cpu's better than intel ones. even no the INTELS have more ghz and larger caches (usually) and dont most AMD's bottleneck most of the newer video cards because they have lower ghz? i mean i kno, ive seen benchmarks! but it just doesent make any sence consitering most amd's bottleneck new video cards due to there low ghz.

I am currently building a computer and have decided to wait for the G71, but what would be the point if the AMD 4000+ i plan on getting will bottleneck that new shiny card!

- Thanks any replies would be appreciated

 

[Lord Banshee]

Umm.. if an Athlon64 is a bottleneck in a game it is not due to becuase it has less GHz then Intel P4 or whatever, and you can bet that the Intel P4 will be a greater bottleneck(bad thing) than the A64 even though it has more GHz.

You just can not compare the A64 to the P4 by its GHz, (this is why AMD release the Rateing 2800+,3000+... so you can compare that number to Intel's chip). Compareing the real GHz is like compare apples and oranges and wondering why the apple taste better when the orange has a better exterrior shell.... Or what ever.

Some nice advance AMD has which makes it better for gaming is, the onboard memory controler, better pipe/Ghz speed rateing, better Float-point performance, and i am sure there are many more.

The next chips intel will release base on those Yonah laptop CPU it will be indeed alot closer to gaming (there is a anantech reviews about this from a couple of weeks ago.. i think)

Hope this helps

 

[sandorski]

We need an Auto Search function. So that as people type out their Titles, related threads are automatically listed!

 

[Jeffreyg4]

yeah, i apologize, but i would like to know and couldent find anything, also so you're saying that a AMD 4000+ will NOT bottleneck a G71, or even a 7800GTX for that matter, and how about a 3800 x2?

 

[coldpower27]

Play at a high enough resolution and the GPU always will become the bottleneck. Intels processors can still be used for gaming, they just aren't as quick at it at the lower resolutions as an AMD based system.

 

[stevty2889]

You CAN NOT compare the clock speed of A64's, or Pentium-M's to the clock speeds of P4's. They have entirely differant architectures. Yes, the A64, and the pentium-m as well run at a lower GHZ, but they use more efficiant designs. Easiest way for me to put it in to perspective is like this.

The P4 is like a 2 lane highway, with a max speed of 65mph. The A64 is a 3 lane highway with a max speed of 50mph. Sure the top speed for the A64 is lower, but it has an extra lane, so can get the same amount of work done, without running at the same speed. And as a benifit, it also produces less heat, and consumes less power.

 

[Jeffreyg4]

ohhhh i see, now for gaming.... a amd 4000+ is like a 1 lane highway at 100kmph and the amd x2 4800 is like a highway with 2 of those lanes. but one is closed... for now. soon both lanes will be open (when games become multithreaded) so for now i will get a amd 4000+ and get a Dual core later on when i can get a really good one for a cheap price

 

[dwcal]

AT has the article to explain this. The super-long 31 stage pipeline is the reason for the Prescott being so slow. It's a marketing-driven architecture. Advertise a big clock speed like 3.6GHz while it can barely keep up with an AMD chip at 2/3 the clock speed.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=1956&p=2

 

[implicit1]

Don't get a 4000+ now, just go for the dual core now. There are already games that support dual cores, and there's no reason to wait IMHO.

 

[DanishDK]

I can agree on this and I have GOOD reasons :

Ever since Toms Hardware showed an AMD going up in smoke , I've been an Intel-fanatic untill I discovered the game-situation !

Today I have ordered an X2 4200+ to go with A8N32SLI-deluxe , and not just because it will be a lot faster for my editing ,
encoding & rendering of video-files plus similar professional work that REALLY puts a strain on my first computer -
but also because the GENUINE multi-threading gives better stability (when doing multi-tasking) than hyperthreading .

It was a great idea - once - from Intel and I have a Northwoood P4 2,4/800 to help me sometimes as my third computer .
I exchanged my 3GHz Prescott with a Pentium M 1,86@2,67GHz which I found out was a complete mistake to do video-work !

Nonetheless I did get AMAZING game-results with this Pentium M ; with a 6600GT I got much more than 4000 in 3Dmark2005
and I've seen that someone got nearly 12000 with the 7800GTX512 , actually a better SINGLE-result than AMD's below 11200 !
BTW , I hope Futuremark soon get their patch out so it's easier to separate those who doesn't write SLI or SINGLE/NON SLI ! :disgust:

So my second computer will be for gaming , primarily , with the Pentium M & 7800GTX512 !
But the heavy work is AMD , my first , and I took the SLI-deluxe (2 GIGAbit LAN) for being ready in the future to upgrade
my gaming-experience (I might buy another 7800GTX512 one day it has a better price :shocked: !) and so on ...

 

[geekified]

If it hasn't been said, I believe the 3DNOW! instruction set also plays a role in the gap, as well as AMD's better memory management with the lack of the external front-side bus. In general, the tech community thinks AMD X2 (dual-core processors) to be better than their Pentium D equivalents due to performance superiority, less energy usage and all in all better stability. That being said, Intel's entry-level processor the 820 costs significantly less than the X2 3800+.

The debate will always rage on, but the margin doesn't seem to change much, AMDs are not dramatically better than Intels of similar quality for gaming, on the whole, besides maybe the FX processors. If you want better game performance, you're way better off buying a new video card in most cases.

 

[Jeffreyg4]

yeah, well the AMD 4000+ is practicly a FX, just slightly underclocked. so i assume that similar performance would be achived. now for AMD dual cores or INTEL dual cores. there is no need for them just yet in games. infact they will most likely preform worse than similar single core CPU's with the same clock speeds. thus why i feel single core is the way to go for games. correct me if im wrong

 

[Jeffreyg4]

EDIT dbl post

 

[DAPUNISHER]

As xbit shows if you have a fast vid card, you bought it to crank up the eye candy a bit, and at those settings any modern CPU is fine for gaming.

Some games are more CPU limited than others due to A.I. physics calc, ect. but even a overclocked $65 Sempr0n is enough to be in spitting distance of much more expensive models when you use settings that stress the vid card highly.

 

[TSS]

Originally posted by: Jeffreyg4
yeah, well the AMD 4000+ is practicly a FX, just slightly underclocked. so i assume that similar performance would be achived. now for AMD dual cores or INTEL dual cores. there is no need for them just yet in games. infact they will most likely preform worse than similar single core CPU's with the same clock speeds. thus why i feel single core is the way to go for games. correct me if im wrong

and corrected you shall be!

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=74

quake 4 has gotten a patch where both cores are used. just look at the benchmarks, that should do it. also notice the single core amd thats in there. gets no benifit while dual cores improve drasticly.

call of duty 2 has gotten a patch aswell, but thats bugged (seeing how they patch that game not suprised really) and it will get better soon.

also, at the very worst case dual core will perform EQUAL to the single core version (so same clockspeed and everything), but most will perform a bit better because your OS gets to offload stuff to the 2nd core, using the other for dedicated gaming. instead of having to run everything on the same core.

besides, i can get either a single core 2.4ghz for the same price as a 2.2ghz, but then dual core. and i dont know about you, but i'd rather have 2 times 2.2, and ill OC the last 200mhz myself (so far like 99% of all dual core AMDs will make 200mhz +.) and in the end, Nvidia and ATI both have drivers out optimised for dual core so all games should benifit atleast a little.

so lastly, i feel that single core isnt needed anymore. correct me if im wrong.

 

[Thor86]

Two things that make AMD better at gaming than Intel:

Shorter instruction pipelines, On-Die Memory controller.

Enough said.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: TSS

Originally posted by: Jeffreyg4
yeah, well the AMD 4000+ is practicly a FX, just slightly underclocked. so i assume that similar performance would be achived. now for AMD dual cores or INTEL dual cores. there is no need for them just yet in games. infact they will most likely preform worse than similar single core CPU's with the same clock speeds. thus why i feel single core is the way to go for games. correct me if im wrong

and corrected you shall be!

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=74

quake 4 has gotten a patch where both cores are used. just look at the benchmarks, that should do it. also notice the single core amd thats in there. gets no benifit while dual cores improve drasticly.

call of duty 2 has gotten a patch aswell, but thats bugged (seeing how they patch that game not suprised really) and it will get better soon.

also, at the very worst case dual core will perform EQUAL to the single core version (so same clockspeed and everything), but most will perform a bit better because your OS gets to offload stuff to the 2nd core, using the other for dedicated gaming. instead of having to run everything on the same core.

besides, i can get either a single core 2.4ghz for the same price as a 2.2ghz, but then dual core. and i dont know about you, but i'd rather have 2 times 2.2, and ill OC the last 200mhz myself (so far like 99% of all dual core AMDs will make 200mhz +.) and in the end, Nvidia and ATI both have drivers out optimised for dual core so all games should benifit atleast a little.

so lastly, i feel that single core isnt needed anymore. correct me if im wrong.

:thumbsup:


On a tight budget but want gaming bang-for-buck? Grab a cheap single-core and spend what you have on as much vid card as you can afford.

However, if you are looking at a single-core like a 4000+, no reason not to go with dual-core instead for that money.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: geekified
If it hasn't been said, I believe the 3DNOW! instruction set also plays a role in the gap, as well as AMD's better memory management with the lack of the external front-side bus. In general, the tech community thinks AMD X2 (dual-core processors) to be better than their Pentium D equivalents due to performance superiority, less energy usage and all in all better stability. That being said, Intel's entry-level processor the 820 costs significantly less than the X2 3800+.

The debate will always rage on, but the margin doesn't seem to change much, AMDs are not dramatically better than Intels of similar quality for gaming, on the whole, besides maybe the FX processors. If you want better game performance, you're way better off buying a new video card in most cases.

Completely wrong. Programs needs to be coded for the 3DNow instruction set and almost none are due to Intel's large market share. So, that's not the reason for AMD's better performance.

An X2 3800+ can be had for a little over $300 and in the course of a year, will be cheaper(lower electricity bills) and vastly outperform a 820.

All you need to do is look at any gaming benchmarks and a AMD dual-core destroy's any Intel Pentium D(not including the Presler).

Dual-core is pretty much the only way to go nowadays. Nvidia and ATI's latest drivers have been developed w/ dual-core in mind(not mature yet but will get better). Newer games will become multi-threaded. And if you're like any normal user, a dual-core will free-up cpu resources for gaming, as one core will take the load for any anti-virus/background programs that you maybe running.

 

[themusgrat]

An AMD is more efficient, almost only because of shorter pipelines and an on-die memory controller. This illustration is not totally accurate, but close enough. The longer pipelines on the Intels allow them to reach higher clock speeds at the cost of real time performance. When an Intel's logic predicts something and gets it wrong, it has already gone through 30 pipelines or whatever, and then has to flush and start over. Moreover, since gaming is all about the CPU reacting to you and the game, all those pipelines are wasted because of their inherent latency. On an AMD, shorter pipelines can only go so fast, but are geared more towards gaming. Intels still do all right on multimedia tests because media tests are constant, and at the most, are reacting to a mouse or keystrokes. But AMDs do good also, especially since they now have SSE3. So basically, since in games, the environment, the AI, any Internet players, the whole game engine, are all reacting to you, a more efficient processor, rather than a fast processor, will win. And the on-die mem controller is very obvious- more bandwidth and less latency.

 

[cryogenic666]

Also AMD dual cores have the advantage of communicating over the Hypertransport link instead of the frontside bus. Thus lower latency and faster communication between the two cores.

 

[Jeffreyg4]

How important is Cache in games. because i would like to know weather the 4400 x2 is worth the extra money over the 4200+ (not overclocking)

 

[themusgrat]

Cache, or the difference between 512 and 1mb, is almost not important at all in most games. It shows up in video editing and server apps. For the money, get the 3800+. But I would still get the 165. Did you read my post about why not to get the 4200+? It won't overclock any more than the 3800+. Now, I have my 165 at 2.7 at stock voltage prime stable.

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: Jeffreyg4
How important is Cache in games. because i would like to know weather the 4400 x2 is worth the extra money over the 4200+ (not overclocking)

Hardly any real-world performance difference.

Get the highest cpu mhz possible (AMD or Intel) for real-world performance.

 

[Jeffreyg4]

Originally posted by: Thor86

Originally posted by: Jeffreyg4
How important is Cache in games. because i would like to know weather the 4400 x2 is worth the extra money over the 4200+ (not overclocking)

Hardly any real-world performance difference.

Get the highest cpu mhz possible (AMD or Intel) for real-world performance.

so you're saying just go for the highest CPU mhz? i thought that even we just talked about how amd was better even with the lower CPU mhz.

 

[NateSLC]

Get the highest Mhz AMD - or - highest Mhz Intel you can afford.