Intel vs AMD

[MoneyDontMatter]

I know this is a sore subject among all of you that has been asked over and over again, but I must ask it. Intel or AMD? I am a very loyal Intel customer and it will take a lot to make me sway from Intel processors. I have pretty much ignored anything dealing with AMD processors due to my loyalty to intel, which makes me very unknowledgeable in this department while i know a lot about anything intel. I had an opportunity to work up close and personal with a K6-2 and it was horrible. It was a 350, i think, and my P2-266 is at least twice as fast. I also have had a nightmare with an older AMD. The thing just blows parts by opening the case. It's not me either, it blew a video card, a sound card, and a hdd crashed on the techie in one hour. Horrible, this doesn't even mention it's lack luster performance. I had heard so good things about the AMD that I bought one due to its cheap price and I was extremely disappointed. How do the new AMDs compare to the Intels and the K6-2s? I mainly look for quality and reliability in a computer part. Performance comes next. Cost is really no issue, but I don't like to throw money away on things like rambus. Also, is there any new technology to come out soon(next 9-18 months)that will not be rediculously expensive(for servers) Processors are already too fast for the other parts in the computer to keep up, but anything new coming? Thanks

 

[han888]

i am still prefer use intel cpu, until the ddr board release may be i would like to have amd system! i work on computer shop, and the problem i have with the customer is always the amd system, make me feel stress sometimes

 

[Compellor]

I was a die hard Intel user for several years, going back to my first computer: a 486 DX66 (ahh...the good ol' "boot disk" days). Since then, I've owned a Pentium 120, Pentium 200, and a Pentium II 350. All were great machines, but I recently decided I would experiment a little, and built a new machine based on AMD's Duron processor. After testing it for several weeks, and seeing how far I could push it, I've come to the conclusion that AMD have finally come up with a fast, reliable, and affordable gaming solution. I use it for gaming, Photoshop, video editing, surfing the net, etc. I used to bash AMD for their inferior FPU, but after playing Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, this little chip has me sold. Of course, it helps to have a good video card -- such as my GeForce 2 GTS -- for gaming, but I am truly convinced now that AMD is the new king of the hill. Intel still make a high quality product, though. Maybe the new Pentium 4 will put Intel back on top.

 

[JohnnyGHz]

Look at any Video card review at "WWW.SharkyExtreme.com". They show all their benchmarks on both PIII 1GHz and AMD 1GHz systems. What you see is a consistant 3 to 4 frames per second better performance from the PIIIs with the same equivalent hardware.

On the other hand, AMD is a lot cheaper. If they come out with a 400 Mhz DDR front side bus system and their own optimized integrated chipset, they would blow Intel away.

It's really close. You typically have more compatability problems with AMD's stuff, but thats changing. Before 4th quarter 1999, only a handful of mother board manufacturers support AMD.
Now Dell, & Sony are including AMD CPU's in the computers and laptops. Intel released motherboards and chipsets with the Rambus memory slots that could only be filled with SDRAM memory fitting to a adapter. This turned out not to work too well and Intel had to recall their boards. Then they release 3 different chipsets and none of them ran as fast as the original 4040BX chipset when overclocked. This gave AMD a chance to fill the gap.

"www.tomshardware.com" latest new article about the Microprocessor Forum 2000 talks about some of the new upcomming chipsets support high DDR FSB speeds for AMD processor from the like of Micron and others.

 

[atomicbomberman]

I'm a loyal intel fan too

fist computer was an IBM PS2 486SX at 25Mhz!!! w/ 4mb of ram =) What a joke
then it's a pentium MMX 233Mhz
then to PII 233, 266, 300(oced), and then wamp! 901Mhz! (current Cel2 setup)

I personally perfer intel stuff, even though I heard a hella lot of good things about Tbird and Duron, I had too much problem w/ the K6 series before to get me really hyped up about them, they are fast, but they just produce too much heat for a .18 micron chip for me to feel save.

I think PIV will be pretty cool.. from what I've read...

 

[jinsonxu]

You're saying that the K6 series was manufactured using 0.18 micron process? That statement doesn't seem right somewhere.

 

[formulav8]

The only reason p3 is a couple frames faster on say Q3 is because Q3 is heavily sse optimized and not any 3D now optimizations. There are some new Q3 dlls coming out that support 3D Now soon.

Atomic: The K6's were not .18 they were .25

 

[han888]

all people now the thunderbird is more faster than p3, because the thunderbird run at 100 fsb (ddr) and intel only run at 133 fsb, but i dont like to take the thundebird system because of the incompabillity

 

[Dark4ng3l]

there are no incompatibilities people blame an amd system for being incompatible when something goes wrong with it and if it's an intel system they dont blame intel dont they. AMD systems are VERY stable if set up properly(and intel system with bad os install can be very frustrating)

 

[TuffGuy]

oh no, not again... in my own tests, a p3-980 gets about the same scores as a tbird 930.

 

[jinsonxu]

TuffGuy, what kind of tests were they? Did you test the FPU? Not to mention the 50Mhz advantage yoru P3 had.

 

[Jugernot]

Heh, I was in the EXACT same situation as you are now a month ago! I had been a Intel fanatic for 5 years and running and never used AMD stuff because of the various problem they had.

Read the thread I posted a month or two ago and see what people said:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=28&threadid=227196

I went with a Duron 600 and a Abit KT7 Raid which I love. I have it set to 900MHz at 1.85v (soon will be getting a better cooler than stock) and really like it!

Feel free to email me about any question you have about AMD CPU's and mobos. I think (no offense guys!) that I have a somewhat unbiased opinion of AMD now because of my past, in other words "I won't tell you BS!".

Jugs
dfcc@mail.com

 

[TuffGuy]

i just did the basics. the sandra cpu, memory, cpu-multimedia, and hard-drive benchmarks, and 3dmark2000. the tbird benefits from its better floating-point and memory capabilities. it worked the p3 in the memory and cpu/multimedia tests. (10%-15%) i tried using seti@home as a benchmark, but it's a lot more optimized for the p3 than it is for the tbird, so it didn't work out.

 

[TuffGuy]

Jugernot - i recommend the Taisol heatsink. it almost as good as an alpha but only costs $11.30.

 

[PwAg]

Just do the research guys. It's all there. As far as my feelings go, AMD Thunderbird is simply a superior processor, but not by much at same clock speeds. It has been proven to match or beat the Pentium III coppermine in almost every benchmark utilized. Perhaps a P3 gets 2-3 more frames in Q3, but please think logically. You make me frustrated if you base your decision to go with P3 simply based on a few extra frames per second or slightly better performance in a SSE optimized application. But when you compare prices, it's absolutely a no brainer. You are just throwing your money away for a Intel P3 at this current time. Save the money and buy yourself a Geforce GTSII with the difference between a P3 and Thunderbird if your a gamer. Or if your a power user, put that extra money towards a solid fast performing harddrive. Don't forget, harddrive's, ram and video cards are by far the largest bottlenecks in today's computer systems.

Price differences are staggering. A Thunderbird 900 mhz can be had for $179 now, where the P3 933 is well into the $400 range. Both chips perform identical, with AMD surpassing P3 in a number of areas. I've completely abandoned Intel, as I currently run a Thunderbird 1000mhz. I used the extra money to buy high quality mushkin ram and a pro sound card, and there is absolutely not one P3 system that can touch the performance of this rig. I can streams more tracks of audio than I can handle in Cubase VST.

And if you are still going to try and use compatibility issues as a scapegoat for buying P3 over AMD, then my friend you are just runnig circles around yourself. You just can't make those judgements until you do some reading and give the AMD chip and its accompanying chipset a try. I would take a Thunderbird over any P3 any day. The new upcoming Intel chip, P4, looks quite bleak as well. AMD route is looking good. Read up and you'll find out all the details for yourself. Good luck.

 

[cabojoe]

LMAO!!! Loyalty to Intel...BAH! You should be loyal to your wife. Loyalty to a chip manufacturer??? Not me!

 

[jinsonxu]

Yeah, if Intel comes out with a product better and cheaper than what AMD has to offer, i'd transport right back.