Intel vs AMD systems on reliability/longevity

[deanx0r]

I have built 5 AMD and 3 Intel systems over the past 15 years and I have noticed a trend with the AMD systems, they all died overtime. I have a clean track record on the Intel side. In most of the failures, the CPU was not the culprit but the supporting motherboard. Maybe it's just a strike of bad luck, but I've never really paid attention to my system failure until my most two recent AMD systems died on me. I've been a die hard AMD supporter until Core 2 Duo came out, but the recent system failures I had make me shy away from future AMD builds. Now this is a very small sample, and I was wondering if it was the case for other people as well.

Please post a history of systems you've built overtime and whether or not they are still running today.

Here's my list:

-Pentium II 266MHz, ASUS P2B Intel 440BX. Still running.
-Pentium 4 2.83GHz, Gigabyte Titan Intel 845E. Still running.
-Core 2 E6600, Asus P5B-D Intel P960. Still running.

-AMD K6-3 500MHz. Epox MVP3G2 VIA chipset. Dead system after 3-4 years.
-AMD K7 900MHz & 850MHz, MSI MS-6167 AMD 750. CPU failure, then motherboard failure after ~5 years.
-Athlon XP 1800+ & 2200+, Abit NF7 nVidia nForce2. CPU failure, then motherboard failure after ~5 years.
-Opteron 146, MSI K8NGM2 nForce 430. Dead motherboard yesterday after 5 years (HTPC).
-Athlon 3800 X2, eVGA 133-K8 nForce 4. Dead motherboard last month after about 5 years.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Are you running all the systems continuously and using the same quality PSUs etc? Otherwise its not a valid comparison. Besides, 5 years of running a problem-free setup is already very good.

BTW all my AMD and Intel systems since 2003 never died, even including 2nd handed ones and hand-me-downs.

 

[deanx0r]

I usually don't mind the early failures because as you said, 5 years is a pretty good run. It wasn't until my last two AMD systems died within a month that I realized they all failed me at this point. All my systems are built for gaming, but retired systems aren't very stressed as they are usually used for web browsing and office use.

Something else I've noticed is that I had lots of troubles with MSI motherboards. I swapped those quite a bit from nForce 1 to nForce 430 chipsets due to their popularity and they all gave me headaches.

As for PSU, I only started to pay attention to them since I upgraded from a K7 500MHz to a K7 900MHz around 2001 I think. Since them I've already built my system around quality PSU from Enermax or Fortron although those have failed me quite a few times.

 

[CurseTheSky]

If something is going to fail, I usually find that it's either the power supply, motherboard, hard drive, or memory. Most of the time, it's actually the motherboard in the cases I've seen.

With that said, a good quality motherboard and power supply, and a good backup system in case of hard drive crash should be all that you need. I still have a few working PIII and P4 systems kicking around (given to friends of the family, etc.), and at the same time I have several Athlon XP, and an Athlon Thunderbird system that refuse to die.

 

[Markfw]

4 of your 5 failures are motherboards. The last 3 motherboards I had die were Intel (p965 chipset), and before those was am AMD (ecs socket 754 something)

All those motherboards were $100 or less (as in cheap).

Its not the chips, its the cheap motherboards.

That said the only cpu's I ever had die were all Athlon XP chips, a 1700 and 2 2400's.

 

[Texun]

Never had an AMD chip fail, and I've had dozens. Failures I've had were related to cheap boards or bad PSUs. A few years ago I found that buying quality power supplies eliminated many odd problems. Not just dead boards but fewer crashes, better performance longer life of components in general. Is it due to the better PS, or have m-board, RAM, and HD manufactures improved their quality? I don't know but I have no plans to change my build strategy. In my years of using AMD I have found nothing to suggest a problem with longevity. I do a lot of research and usually buy ASUS or Gigabyte boards and have no complaints.

Heat will slowly kill electronics over time. I'm not obsessed with cooling but my builds are never complete until I get max temps at or below 50% of the design rating. A current exception for me is a Gigabyte 785G board. Gigabyte says 100C (212F) is acceptable for the NB but I don't buy that. I suspect that will be the board's weakest link over time. Just my $.02

 

[ElFenix]

cheap chinese capacitors

 

[Rhoxed]

i have an ABit AX7??? Mobo with a barton 2500+ putting along for the last several years, no problems at all, also a Athlon 64 system still running, a 939, and all sig rigs, all still running

i also have a P4 1.8ghz Dell that is still being used, and a p4 3.0ghz + Asus p4p800-SE still running like a champ
actually no failuers here from either camp

 

[taltamir]

-Pentium II 266MHz, ASUS P2B Intel 440BX. Still running.
-Pentium 4 2.83GHz, Gigabyte Titan Intel 845E. Still running.
-Core 2 E6600, Asus P5B-D Intel P960. Still running.

-AMD K6-3 500MHz. Epox MVP3G2 VIA chipset. Dead system after 3-4 years.
-AMD K7 900MHz & 850MHz, MSI MS-6167 AMD 750. CPU failure, then motherboard failure after ~5 years.
-Athlon XP 1800+ & 2200+, Abit NF7 nVidia nForce2. CPU failure, then motherboard failure after ~5 years.
-Opteron 146, MSI K8NGM2 nForce 430. Dead motherboard yesterday after 5 years (HTPC).
-Athlon 3800 X2, eVGA 133-K8 nForce 4. Dead motherboard last month after about 5 years.

a bad motherboard would kill your CPU before failing...
I see the intels are "asus" and "gigabyte"... the two best mobo manufacturers... using an intel chips.
on the AMD side I see not a single asus or gigabyte board... I see 1 "dead system" (what exactly died?) and 4 mobo failures, and those are mostly VIA and nvidia chipsets.
My astute skills tell me that the failed CPUs were fried by the mobo before it failed. (possibly due to a crap PSU). And the the mobos who failed failed due to either an inferior chipset or construction...

-Pentium II 266MHz, ASUS P2B Intel 440BX. Still running.

Is this one half or one third the speed of the iphone? what do you even NEED something that slow for?

actually... this outperforms a lot of the systems you had (and which failed):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-183-_-Product

And due to the difference in power consumption, it will pay for itself within months... (for the dead systems it replaces)
how much power does the penitum 2 system consume at the wall? it might be worthwhile to throw it in the trash and put an atom system in its instead just for saving money on electricity

 

[alyarb]

all of those machines could be virtualized on an undervolted propus+785G for less than the cost of an atom machine and you would save more power overall. stick with seasonic and gigabyte ultradurable boards and you don't have to worry about longevity.

 

[deanx0r]

All those motherboards were $100 or less (as in cheap).
Its not the chips, its the cheap motherboards.

on the AMD side I see not a single asus or gigabyte board... I see 1 "dead system" (what exactly died?) and 4 mobo failures, and those are mostly VIA and nvidia chipsets.
My astute skills tell me that the failed CPUs were fried by the mobo before it failed. (possibly due to a crap PSU). And the the mobos who failed failed due to either an inferior chipset or construction...

Well, that's the point of buying AMD as they usually offer better value than their Intel counterparts. At the time, I never really paid attention to the brand. I just usually bought the motherboard with the better reviews, and in the AMD side, it appeared to be MSI using nForce chipsets (it's not like AMD had good chipsets back then).

I am just wondering if AMD low prices drive its partner to cut corners in manufacturing?

 

[Markfw]

Well, that's the point of buying AMD as they usually offer better value than their Intel counterparts. At the time, I never really paid attention to the brand. I just usually bought the motherboard with the better reviews, and in the AMD side, it appeared to be MSI using nForce chipsets (it's not like AMD had good chipsets back then).

I am just wondering if AMD low prices drive its partner to cut corners in manufacturing?

Coming from a staunch AMD supporter, I can say that ever since the K8 came out, I have not seen hardly any bad motherboards, or CPU's. Like I said, as of late (the mast 4 years) I have had more Intel motherboards (gigabyte S3 to be exact) die on me than anything else.

 

[classy]

I have had boards fail, lose some functions, but never had a chip fail.

 

[BD231]

Anyone to debate the topic as if either AMD or Intel has the distinguished advantage in reliability have nothing but themselves to thank for their verdict, especially if they have multiple builds failing within only 5 years of use.

I've never seen that and I've been building/selling amd systems in my spare time for the past ten years. Furthermore, you simply don't hear of either AMD or Intel wide spread part failure; and you won't short of some horrific design flaw.

Buy better surrounding components, you shouldn't be loosing your computers like that.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The only boards that I've had fail on me have been Intel-CPU boards. One, BX6r2, died because of a failed slotket mod for the Tualatin CPUs (my fault). One, an ECS 370 board was just flaky, and one, a Conroe865PE board failed on me, with an E4400 in it.

I don't recall what I did with my AMD 386DX-40 board, or my 5x86-133 board. Must've junked them for some reason, but I don't recall failure being the reason.

My KT400V-L MSI mobo and AMD Athlon XP1800+ CPU kept running strong for a number of years, such that I sold them as a combo at a flea market some years after I bought it.

Currently have about three AMD systems semi-running, with two more waiting in the wings to be built.

I don't think that there is anything inherently unreliable about either camp. Cheap motherboards are generically unrealiable at times, but that applies to both AMD and Intel (although, AMD may have a larger percentage of "cheap" boards out there).

 

[jiffylube1024]

I have built 5 AMD and 3 Intel systems over the past 15 years and I have noticed a trend with the AMD systems, they all died overtime. I have a clean track record on the Intel side. In most of the failures, the CPU was not the culprit but the supporting motherboard. Maybe it's just a strike of bad luck, but I've never really paid attention to my system failure until my most two recent AMD systems died on me. I've been a die hard AMD supporter until Core 2 Duo came out, but the recent system failures I had make me shy away from future AMD builds. Now this is a very small sample, and I was wondering if it was the case for other people as well.

Please post a history of systems you've built overtime and whether or not they are still running today.

Here's my list:

-Pentium II 266MHz, ASUS P2B Intel 440BX. Still running.
-Pentium 4 2.83GHz, Gigabyte Titan Intel 845E. Still running.
-Core 2 E6600, Asus P5B-D Intel P960. Still running.

-AMD K6-3 500MHz. Epox MVP3G2 VIA chipset. Dead system after 3-4 years.
-AMD K7 900MHz & 850MHz, MSI MS-6167 AMD 750. CPU failure, then motherboard failure after ~5 years.
-Athlon XP 1800+ & 2200+, Abit NF7 nVidia nForce2. CPU failure, then motherboard failure after ~5 years.
-Opteron 146, MSI K8NGM2 nForce 430. Dead motherboard yesterday after 5 years (HTPC).
-Athlon 3800 X2, eVGA 133-K8 nForce 4. Dead motherboard last month after about 5 years.

440BX and 845E (as well as 865) were workhorses that were some of the most reliable boards around, and well designed boards that didn't get too hot.
--------------

-For the failed boards - Epox, MSI and eVGA aren't exactly the best motherboard brands around, and I've had similar experiences with them lasting 3-5 years before biting the dust.

-VIA chipsets are often subpar.

-The NF7(-S) series was a fantastic value board for its era, which is why so many people bought them, but I've also seen them having a high failure rate over the last couple of years.

-Some of those AMD boards were ones with notoriously bad/failure prone northbridge cooling - tiny fans that get clogged or just die after a few years. Northbridge temps were too high so those chips were prone to failure over time. Many NF7-S boards that had their NB coolers replaced immediately with big, fan-free Zalman heatsinks are still going.

 

[aigomorla]

short condensed version.

The board or memory dies b4 the cpu usually does, so either cpu you get, get a great board for it, and have active cooling on your memory.

 

[Dark Shroud]

MSI has gotten better, they also use high quality capacitors on a lot of their products now after some issue they had.

VIA, I really do not like their products. A lot of cheaper AMD board use their audio chips as well. Asus is really bad at that.

With AMD CPUs you're best sticking with Gigabyte.

 

[halley]

Buy better surrounding components, you shouldn't be loosing your computers like that.

Good advice! I have been using PC's since 1984 and have never experienced any CPU failures.

 

[lopri]

In 2006-2007: 20+ Opterons and A64's overclocked, on 2 motherboards.

In 2008-2009: 20+ C2D/C2Q's overclocked, on 12+ motherboards (15+ including RMA's).

That's my side of story.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Multiple Athlon failures.....but not my k6-2 I had back in the 90s.

No Intel failures, but i did make a market in those chips, and out of the hundreds (600+?) I purchased to flip I only came accross one that either lost its hyperthreading function or was fraudulently marked. The seller took it back.

Ive used a p4 3.2 daily since 2005.

 

[Martimus]

I did have a K6-233 that I had to underclock to 210 MHz after about 2 years to keep running. I can't remember what happened to me 750MHz K7, but my Athlon XP died when my PSU went up in smoke. My Athlon 64 3500+ never gave me any problems after 4 years, and I only replaced it so that games would run smoother (went dual core).

 

[slayernine]

It is quite rare to see a processor running at stock speeds fail over time. Usually it is motherboard, power supply or hard drive. The processors are probably the most tested part in a computer as they get thrown through the binning process to determine how fast, hot and power hungry they run.

 

[slayernine]

Good advice! I have been using PC's since 1984 and have never experienced any CPU failures.

I can also add myself as someone who has worked with computers for a fairly long while without seeing the CPU fail. Though I have seen power supplies destroy a system including a processor. The smell of a burning processor is quite distinctively metallic.

 

[sandorski]

A Quality Motherboard will last a long time.