why would somebody pick amd over intel

i just don't get why you would get an amd 2.X Ghz processor over a 3.4 Ghz Intel processor. They are basically the same price. Is there something I am missing? Is it just one of those things that people have their own way about?

 

AMD x2 = dual core; the 3.2ghz isnt. AMD has better architechture and resource processing so you get alot more performance over alot less speed. Also, xcluding the X2, price point of AMD is always alot lower then Pentium4s.

 

ok, did i read that wrong or did you say you get less speed but more performance with an AMD? What do you mean my performance? I am going to buy a mobo and a processor but i just want to make sure I am making the right choice. Thanks

 

yes; not all CPUs are built the same. Pentium always goes with raw speed to get its kicks. AMD goes with better arcitechture. Kind of like Import Ricers vs American muscle cars.

Here is a review of X2 http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/processors/amd_x2/index.shtml

"Purchase the X2 if you are a workstation user or a performance minded consumer who wants to squeeze outrageous performance out of one processor instead of buying two and getting less. You will be getting bar none, best performance ever found in a single chip solution."

That being said; and AMD FX55 probably sounds like the better solution right now if you want just as much performance and save a buck.​

 

ok, i'm starting to pick things up. thanks a lot. But one more question. If I wanted to build a semi gaming machine (it would be used for other things too, but I want to be able to play the newer, better games like doom 3 and half life 2), would i choose speed or performance (in other words Intel or AMD)
by the way, I would buy a 3X00 AMD, not a dual-core system. I don't have that much money.

 

Whats a 3x00 amd? what is your budget? plus if your on a budget and u want performance then AMD is always the way.

 

Omegamerc is right. Intel will use the same processor architecture and push it as far as they can to increase the speed. However, because of this you may be able to cut corners in other parts of the computer to save a little money.

AMD on the other hand relies on memory management for its speed. Because of this, buying and AMD processor may not be a inexpensive as some may have originally thought. The money you may have saved on the processor you may want to consider putting into getting good quality RAM.

A number of my friends prefer AMD since they seem to be a little easier to overclock than the Intels. However, with overclocking comes heat issues. If you plan on doing some overclocking make sure you know what you’re doing before attempting it.

In the end it’s your call. Most people end up choosing one over the other due to personal preference. Just do your research and start comparing the hardware before buying them and you’ll get a lot of bang for the dollar.

Good Luck

 

You can easily spend hundreds of dollars more for Intel, and get lesser performance.

 

this comming from someone that works at Micro$oft lmao

i used both amd and intel and i find that intel seems to do the job just fine but thats in my own words for me it seems that i can overclock my intel alot easyer thin i did with the amd i had but like what the other people said its up to you

 

quote: Whats a 3x00 amd? what is your budget? plus if your on a budget and u want performance then AMD is always the way.

well, i'm not sure which 3000+ amd i want.. the 3200, the 3400, etc. I don't really know what my budget is. I suppose I want to buy a motherboard and a processor both for at most $500, but that price may go down. Like I said, I don't want a super computer, I just want the best bang for my buck. I have been looking at the cpu + motherboard combos at tigerdirect.com. I am thinking between these two:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=876384&CatId=0
and
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1428513&CatId=0

 

Both are fine, but from a price point... Intel loses.

You pay a lot more for less performance, even if its a small difference.

 

Both are fine, but from a price point... Intel loses.

Are you talking processors or the two mobos that I listed?

 

I dont recommend buying from Tiger Direct, just from the negative crap I've read over and over again. Plus you dont want a K800 mobo; you want an Nforce3 ultra minumum, or even Nforce 4(much better). Since you said 500$ for the combo; do you have the other requirements? vid card/ram etc?

 

AMD CPU's go a lot faster then intel because if you speak about mhz. Because AMD does 3(?) processes per clock cycle instead of intels 2(?). So the actual number is what it compares to intels cpus. Such as my 1800xp that is really 1.53ghz can perform as well as a intel 1.8ghz.

 

Good Point from Omegamerc!
Try Newegg and think about socket 939:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...tion=socket+939&Order=rating&CompareItemList=

 

wow, thanks for all of the tips. i guess i have never heard of newegg before, but I guess if people are recommending it, then it must be a good site. The only thing about these motherboards (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...tion=socket+939&Order=rating&CompareItemList=)
is that I don't think that I need an SLI motherboard and that seems to be the thing that really drives the price up. I don't have a videocard yet, but I suppose if i get a Nvidia mobo, I need to get a Nvidia videocard right? The first mobo is the one that I want but I don't think that I will ever use it to its full potential. As for ram, it is relatively cheap, so I don't think that I would have a problem getting that. Do you think that a gig is enough? I realize that quality of ram is important, but I wouldn't need more than a gigabyte would I? Seriously though, any tips are greatly appreciated!

 

ok, now that I have checked around newegg, i think i am going to go for the AMD Athlon 64 3500+. I have not made up my mind about the motherboard yet though. What do you think about this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813186037
Thanks for any input.

 

if your looking for price with acceptable performance i like this mobo...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136147

i use the one just above this one, and have no complaints. with thest guys help i think i have built myself a great computer for a reasonable price. i myself like asus mobo's, but back then i didnt have the money for it, so in 2 weeks im upgrading my mobo, but honestly i do believe that that is a great mobo for the price, you will not be dissapointed. you asked that if you get a nvidia mobo you need nvidia card, not true at all. im running lp motherboard right now with nvidia chipset, and im using an x800 sapphire pro. so if me and you are on the same page, then no you dont need the nvidia.

here are my specs.

lp mobo, x800 sapphire pro, amd 3500+, wd 200gig hd, and as suggested from majorgeek buddys 1 gig of corsair xms ram.

i hope i helped you out alittle bit, and thks to all the majorgeek peeps who helped me <3

 

srry, but if your looking for socket 939, you would have to bump up the mobo to this one...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136151

its considerably pricy, but this is the one i use, and i love it. and honestly a mobo is not an area where i would try to save money. too much can go wrong with the wrong choice.

 

I went to the foxconn site and typed in the mobo model number to check tech support

http://www.foxconn.com/products/pro...=Part+Number&freeText=NF4UK8AA-8EKRS+&x=7&y=5

I then typed in motherboard

http://www.foxconn.com/other/sitesearch.asp?search=motherboard&x=7&y=5

So dont expect any tech support!

 

I have had Pentium basically since I got into computing.

I recently built my first system using a Foxconn MOBO 939 pin with an AMD 64 3500+ and believe me, I will never look back.

 

As far as I know, and I'm doing this from memory, Foxconn took over from LeadTek when they stopped making motherboards.

Given that Leadtek's support has always been sadly lacking in my experience, it would come as no surprise to find Foxconn the same, which would be a pity as they seem to make pretty good budget boards.

 

wow, seriously, thanks to everybody for their support. I think I am going to go with this mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130491
I know its kinda cheap, but I think it is a good quality board and I don't need SLI or anything. As for a previous comment, I am definitely not going to go with a 200 dollar board. I just don't have that kind of money. Now I am going to have some shopping for some ram and a video card. (I'll probably have more questions ) Thanks.

 

before you go out and spend money on that board, please take note that it contains no agp slots, which means that you would need to buy a pci gfx card before you could ever fire that bad boy up...jus thought i would let you know

 

A pci-e card, not just a regular pci slot.

 

you've got your facts a bit off mate.
first: it's a technology AMD invented, yes, BUT, Intel didn't pay them for it? why not? simple: it's an extension to the x86 instruction set which Intel invented and AMD licensed, this deal makes it possible for them to use each others instructionsets.
second: AMD's FSB and Intels work quite differently as AMD's is a highspeed link to the southbridge because they've got the memory-controller on-die, unlike Intel.
third: AMD didn't design any CPU for Intel, you'd know this if you compared the two CPU's, the architecture of the K8 (AMD Athlon64(FX)/Opteron) is way different than the Netburst architecture of the P4.

and no, I'm not an Intel fanboy, my old and my current pc both utilize AMD Athlon processors.

 

The words p!ss and bonfire spring to mind!

 

Lol wouldn't go that far!

 

both cpu's have their uses

 

Short_jo, that MSI board is a pretty good choice.

If you have to buy another video card or don't mind paying for a PCI Xpress card, then at least you will "future-proof" your rig a bit longer than with an AGP one.

 

I just had to chime in with my 2 cents. For an excellent comparison of the capabilities of AMD vs Intel, follow this link: http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041221/index.html If you want the "light version" skip to the benchmark section of the article. As far as the motherboard goes, I would agree that the MSI should be fine for you. If money is a problem, you may want to go with a motherboard that has an AGP slot versus PCI-E as AGP video cards run a bit cheaper than PCI-E. But then again, AGP is going to go by the wayside in a couple of years, so you may want to bit the bullet and go PCI-E.

 

Since I'm not sure how how much you have picked up in the other responses, here's the scoop on the differences between AMD and Intel processors. Hopefully it will clarify some things.

The original AMD Athlon was designed to compete back in the days of 500MHz processors. It was an all new design, and MHz for MHz was a bit faster than the Pentium 3. There were a few changes along the way, but it was a good race from 500MHz to 1GHz, with AMD and Intel being very close to each other in performance. AMD beat Intel to the 1GHz mark, and it was just after that where Intel ran into a problem. The Pentium 3 design(based on the Pentium 2 and Pentium Pro before it) ran out of room to grow in such a competitive environment. It was picked up again for the Pentium-M(a core part of Centrino), but that's another issue.

So, Intel had a problem, the P3 couldn't go any faster than around 1.1GHz, while the Athlon was still going strong. Intel released the Pentium 4, initially at 1.4GHz. An interesting thing is that since the design was different, that 1.4 was a bit slower than the 1.1GHz Pentium 3. It's been a while, but the 1.5GHz P4 may have been around as fast as the 1.1GHz Pentium 3. This was all a while ago. Over time, Intel has carried the Pentium 4 all the way up to the 3.8GHz max speed we see today.

The Athlon design has managed to keep on going, though there have been some updates. The Athlon, which evolved into the Athlon XP started to lose a little ground to the updates Intel was adding to the Pentium 4. In general the chips were very competitive, but overall, Intel was leading. So AMD had to do something, and to remain competitive, they had to do something more than a tweak to the design. The results are the Athlon 64, Opteron, and socket 754 version of the Sempron(a cut-back version of the Athlon 64 without the 64 bit support).

The changes included an integrated memory controller on the CPU(processor), as well as a new interconnect method called HyperTransport to handle communication between different system components. The integrated memory controller lets the CPU talk directly to the memory without needing to go through the main system bus(which is shared with all the other information going through the system). The result is that for the vast majority of applications and games, the Athlon 64 has a MAJOR advantage in performance. The overall clock speed hasn't gone up all that much compared to the older Athlon XP, but the performance boosts from the new technology improvements are very noticable. So a 3000+ Athlon 64 is quite a bit faster than a 3000+ Athlon XP. Both of these chips are designed to compete with the Pentium 4 3.0GHz, a 3200+ compares to a 3.2GHz P4, etc. At least in theory.


That's about it. There are SOME applications which take advantage of the higher clock speeds in the Pentium 4, but for the vast majority of applications, especially games, the Athlon 64 is the clear leader in performance.

There are other things when comparing AMD to Intel when it comes to the "64 bit extensions", but since 64 bit isn't an issue for most people, I left them out. There is also the issue of the new "Dual Core" processors which are just comming out now. Dual Core is the equivilant to two processors in one, and for overall design, AMD has the better implementation, but if you don't need a multiple processor computer for what you do, it's not worth looking at right now.

I hope this information helps.

 

That's the wrong site, you want this one for Foxconn:

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/index.cfm

 

AMD had licensed the rights to make an x86 compatable chip quite a while ago. As a result of that agreement, Intel was allowed to make an AMD64(one of the names for AMD's 64 bit extensions to the x86 instruction sets, also called x86-64). AMD got no money for their innovation, and Intel even refuses to give AMD the credit they deserve for designing the instruction set.

As a part of their work on the Athlon 64 and Opteron, AMD headed up the development of a new method for system components to talk to each other called HyperTransport. Those who are a member of the consortium that is involved in developing and improving the HyperTransport design are granted a free license to use the technology for free, so companies like Nvidia don't have to pay to use HyperTransport in their products. Intel is NOT a member so if they wanted to use HyperTransport, they would have to pay.

HyperTransport was initially going to run at 800MHz(1600MHz effective because of DDR technology being used) for use on the Athlon 64 and Opteron, but when socket 939 came out, the updated 1GHz(2GHz effective) version was used for the processor. So you have a nice fast connection method between the CPU and the rest of the system.

Intel released a 1066MHz bus for some of their processors, but the vast majority of them run at a wimpy 800MHz effective bus speed.

Once dual core becomes more common, that slower bus speed on the Intel processors will start to become much more of an obvious handicap.

 

Go with an Nforce 4 Ultra based board. There are three tiers of Nforce 4 boards, the standard, the Ultra version, and the SLI version. While there is a difference in performance between standard and Ultra(as well as some feature differences), the difference between Ultra and SLI versions is minor.

Note that you can run an ATI video card in an Nforce 4 board, but you can't run in SLI mode that way. ATI has their own multiple video card technology they call Crossfire, but it's still new and I'm not sure if any are available to the public.

 

encrypt@ "a mobo is not an area where i would try to save money. too much can go wrong with the wrong choice."

This is the truth. Excellent point. Your motherboard is going to determine EVERYTHING you can use in your system. Don't skimp on the mobo. You'll be happy you didn't down the road. Now, if you don't want to go SLI, that's fine. But still pick a feature layden board so that you have the option of upgrading your components without having to replace the board.

For example: Going with an AMD socket 939 will allow you to get a 3X00+ now, but it is the same socket they're using for dual core processors. So in a couple years when you want to upgrade your CPU and prices have dropped through the floor, you're still sitting pretty with a mobo that supports it.

Also, get something with PCI-x You'd be a fool not to at this point.

Think about components you can afford and components you wish you could afford, then pick a mobo that supports both.

Here's my fav... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136152

I've been really impressed with the quality of DFI boards. The extras they give you are second to none. Not to mention that the board is $135 and you can get a combo deal where a 3500+ is an additional $257. Sure, it's only $10 off, but hey, It's $10 off!

 

it all comes down to personal preference... but as far as your theoretical budget goes you can pick up an athalon 64 3500+ 90nm revE and a board.... maybe even ram if you do some shopping around for 500 or less... deffinatly check out newegg.com

Here's my fav... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16813136152
^^^^^^^^^^^^
i deffinatly agree

 

I only spent about 5mins on the thread,I just clicked neweggs foxconn link,good to see they have a support page though,some good info Targon,but I think he bought his mobo over a week ago.

 

PCI-X is a different standard than PCI Express. PCI-X supports a higher amount of power than normal PCI if I remember correctly. Many PCI cards have the notch and support both PCI and PCI-X with the same card, but not all.

Anyway, on to the next thread.