AMD or Intel

It looks like I might be building a new computer for my guitar teacher. He needs one for his studio. Naturally, its going to have a tricked out sound card. But I'm wondering which processor I should go with. The new AMD dual cores look pretty hot, but isn't Intel known for being really good with multi-media?
(note: don't say Mac....that is not an option)

 

It's not a big deal what you get. You won't notice anything at all in terms of speed. There are people who say AMD is better for multimedia and games and there are others who say Intel is. It's all opinion I think. The only unit you should base your decision on is price, and in that department AMD usually is king....

 

AMD...it's a better product and it's cheaper because they don't pay the blue man group to do advertisements for them!!!

Roger

 

AMD=speed and cheaper....

Intel=stability and reliability and more expincive...

IMHO.....( thow the stability dif. is vary small..)

Im more less AMD all the way...( the only exception being pre 1GHz CPUs... )

 

I've yet to see a stability failure comparison between AMD / Intel in these past generation cpus.

 

Alot of people say Intels are better but from MY personal experiences with them, they end up slowing down as the years go by, and run at a slower speed under load. AMDs on the otherhand(again from personal experiences) work great for multi programs and don't slow down! As a matter of fact, my dad had a custom AMD Athlon XP 1800+ comp built a couple years back, 3-5 years i think, maybe more... And he uses it SPECIFICALLY for music production and recording, it handles everything great and its not even an athlon 64!

I say AMD... again im going off personal experience and what I have used to record music...

Also, go with a HIGH END, HIGH PRICED M-Audio sound card, This is what my dad uses for recording bands, and us play in our garage...

 

Yea all being said AMD CPUs ( newer ones ) are prolly more stable then thare Intel equals when you take the heat facter into acount ...AMD tends to run a good bit cooler then thare Intel counterparts.....Thare is a stress test going on toms hardware last i checked...ill dig up a link....

 

[font=Arial,Helvetica] Dual Core Stress Test: AMD vs. Intel [font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica] [/font][font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]([/font][/font][font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica] June 3, 2005 )[/font]
[font=Arial,Helvetica]
[/font][font=Arial,Helvetica] Live from the THG Lab: We "Stress Out" AMD and Intel[/font] [font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica](December 17, 2004)[/font]

 

cool, will read up when I get the chance http://forums.majorgeeks.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

 

It would also depend on what he wants to do more. If he is doing a lot of clock reliant things then Intel would be a better cpu. Intel has higher Actual Clock Cycles, which is why Intel is actually sometimes better than AMD when doing things with media. Lord knows I love my AMD, but when ripping CD's and things of that nature my wife's 2.8GHZ P4 seems nice. Stupid Blue Man group.....stupid Dave Mathews.....stupid Daredevil movie.....wait that Dave Mathews/Blue Man Group song was on the Matrix Reloaded soundtrack.....stupid Daredevil movie....

 

Buy whatever you want. The differences are rather trivial. I would avoid the Intel EE and AMD FX lines, however, because they're grossly overpriced unless you plan to liquid cool and overclock.

 

This must be one of the most common debates EVER!
I would go with AMD but thats me...

 

IMO...of the several cpus that I have bought within the last couple of years....Dollar for dollar...AMD is a better buy!!!! You will probably notice that when you compare an AMD with an intel of the EXACT SAME soecs (or as close as humanly possible) the intel will be a bit more expensive!! But again, I believe, that this is due to the fact that Intel spends gobs of money on advertising to the general public!!

Both companies obviously have their strong points!!! otherwise they wouldn't still be in business with both holding a STRONG share of the market!!

I myself always get AMD...but, like I said, you can get more power for the dollar with AMD, in my opinion!!

I have to mention though....I find it quite humorous that AMD won the award for "Best Processor Manufacturer" or something like that...at a convention that Intel has dominated for years...and Intel is and has always been the MAJOR sponser of the show and present the awards!! LOL

Roger

 

First of all, whats IMHO. Second of all, in terms of stability and lasting power, in my expericine AMD comes out on top. My friends Celeron made him fantize about kicking and shotting his computer. On top of it all, Intels philosophy is "LETS GET OUR CLOCK RATES REALLY REALLY HIGH AND USE TONS OF POWER AND MAKE OUR SYSTEMS RUN REALLY REALLY HOT!" Right now, it seems as if AMD has caught up to Intel and surpassed them in SOME areas, but not all. I'd probably end up going with the AMD because its going to save you so much money in the long run. Between power consumption costs and upgrading, AMD is going to be better. AMD will save you money on ur power bill and will last forever, unlike pentiums which i have had very bad experiences with. Pentiums tend to breakdown for some reason.

 

Here,Here Major.

Intel does make a nice motherboard, and they always seem to get the cool stuff first. Not to mention anyone who doesn't like that Intel HD audio, is tone deaf. It is nice, and thats coming from an Audigy2 ZS Platinum owner. Not saying it's quite the 2ZS, but it's a bit better than Soundstorm honestly. And Man are Intel's Dual Core 64bit cpu's cheap......hmmm....

 

Can you make some suggestions? I'm looking at building my first AMD (lifetime Intel fan) to save some bucks, and don't have a clue where to start for AMD-type motherboards! I won't be doing any gaming, but working with large image files (Photoshop), web design, and programming is what this box'll be used for mostly.

Thanks for any suggestions or links, guys!
Jack

 

Well see, I think thats what really makes AMD, is the selection of motherboards you can get. Like you said Major, with Intel you're probably going to get an Intel motherboard (which I actually don't like because of their P.O.S. intergraded "intel extreme" graphics.) But with AMD, you have such a wide selection and you can pick the one thats right for you. Anywho, we've kinda gotten away from my original question, "Whats better for Music editing and mastering?" Sure, I guess intel is good for ur DVD's but what about the Music?

 

Music is not significantly difficult to process until you get very high-end (near-studio quality) at which point you would use a high-end audio card. At that point the sampling quality becomes more important. True 56-bit audio is the current height, AFAIK, although it isn't clear if the 64-bit audio stuff out there is for 64-bit sampling quality or 64-bit operating systems.

 

As Halo said the soundcard is most important for music an Amd or Intel will do fine,once you have cut your tracks though your gonna wanna encode the lot into MP3 and stick it on your ipod,or whatever code you prefer,for that Intel wins hands down,most of the upper end Intel chips price for price perform 30% faster when encoding than Amd.

 

My guitar teacher is going to using this in his studio for recording. So yea, its going to be very high-end sound quality. So what I'm hearing is that each processor will handle music fine, its the soundcard that matters.

 

If your going to go with a soundcard get the delta 1010, its pretty much the best there is (at the moment) but this is an important POINT... You can have the WORST soundcard with basic analog and midi hookups, like 1x1 I/O EACH and still be able to record excellent quality music, that is if he has decent hardware, like mixers and etc... Another key role is what program hes using, its probably going to be something like pro tools, Adobe Audition, or Cubase SX/2...

http://m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta1010-main.html

Again from personal experience (my dad runs a recording studio out of our garage) and makes CDs and demos for bands who come in and record, and he uses an AMD Athlon XP 1800+, and everything in his computer is low end (purchased around the $400 mark back when things were expensive) except for his $600 audio setup (link is above). My point is that AMD CAN handle recording studio grade music, and intel had a hard time doing it when he was using our office computer... again, just my 2 cents