Intel vs. AMD: Which brand of CPU should you choose when building a PC?

[FireFox]

The title says it all.

What's your choice and why.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I have a one word answer

 

[Kursah]

Frankly depends on needs, wants and budget.

Bang for the buck seems to usually go towards AMD, but I find no problems getting good performance per dollar out of Intel. I also work more with Intel, so I tend to go that way...I am hoping Zen will bring some more real competition to the playing field though.

That said I have no problem building AMD, for personal builds I generally choose Intel. Both have their places in builds.

This is a dangerous thread, with a question that's been hammered out dozens if-not hundreds of time, just on TPU alone...this thread needs something different to keep it from becoming one of those and hopefully not a fanboi pissing match festival. Good luck!

 

[EarthDog]

PC for.................what Knoxx? Gaming? Productivity? Both? What's the budget?

Either or will do fine for most users. If you sli/CFx, go Intel, if you don't, then it doesn't matter. But yeah, without being at least somewhat more descriptive, this thread is kind of useless because it's starting out so broad not to mention, any build thread you look at shows people's preferences.

That said, i didnt vote, nor will I until some details actually come out.

Good luck keeping the kiddos in line in this thead..oy.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Not a fair question or survey. So I will not take it.

There is so much more to just choosing between Chevy and Ford. I like Ford trucks better than Chevy but I like the Camaro better than Mustangs. The point is, not all Fords are better than all Chevys. Same with CPUs.

For computers, it is much more complicated because the CPU is but one component inside the computer. There are graphics card brands, different makes of motherboards, RAM, drives, power supplies and cases. Both brands of CPUs make very reliable, quality CPUs and both will form a decent platform for a quality system.

Brand loyalty limits your opportunities.

If you want a valid survey, pick a specific AMD CPU and a specific Intel.

 

[micropage7]

For now is intel, since i need desktop pc with lower power consumption.
Now i need low power than performance, but so far intel holds the crown

 

[hat]

Intel... for now. The FX line is just too slow and power hungry. Hopefully Zen shakes things up.

That said, I dislike what Intel has been doing. They've been putting the clamps on overclocking ever since the original i7 lineup. I feel if they had stronger competition that would not have happened. Even Sandy and Ivy had some limited overclocking potential, but in order to get real unlocked overclocking, you had to pay for the K series. Later generations (Haswell, Skylake) are totally locked out unless you buy the K series. Then there's the different H/Z series chipsets. You have to buy the Z series board to overclock. There were some manufacturers who opened up overclocking on lower cost H series boards, but Intel's been shutting them down too. This all says to me that Intel is purposely extracting the most money possible out of people like us. That's why I'm so hopeful for Zen. Hopefully it offers the performance and efficiency to finally compete with Intel, and do it while not trying to strip mine our wallets by locking everything down except the most expensive unlocked edition.

I don't have much money, but if Zen can break through, I'll find a way to support AMD by buying a Zen setup. I don't even need more performance than what my current system offers, at all. I'd do it just to shoot back at Intel a little bit.

 

[5DVX0130]

Fanboy survey? nthx
I buy whichever fulfills my needs for the task I need it for, and offers a good price/performance ratio.

 

[RejZoR]

Whatever makes your heart tick faster. I had my sight locked onto AMD Zen, but it took so long I just bought a Core i7 5820K. Can't complain. People who will buy new systems now can pick Zen since it's around the corner.

 

[alucasa]

I use PC for mainly rendering and AMD doesn't even stand a leg against Intel.

 

[Tomgang]

Before that I7 920 i have now i had AMD´s for years and dit not know better back when. But after my interest for pc got to another levet and gaming where a new thing for me, amd cut just not deliver what i wanted. A cpu cappeble of running every thing i throw at it, overclock like hell and just had brute power over all. At the time i had AMD´s awfull first gen Phenom X3 cpu with 3 cores. And i hated that cpu. Slow and oc where a hell, cut hardly get over 3 GHz.

But when Intels lovely X58 came out and it where love at first sight. well X58 where on the pricy side at the time, but look how well it performed even today and at the time overclock like notting else cut do. Took the I7 920 all the way to 4.4 GHz from stock 2.8 GHz at the same multiplier. The first gen phenom chip i had cut barally hit 3 GHz before it say no hell no not any more and since then AMD cpu dit not have the same brute power as Intels cpu can give.

I became from AMD to intel fanboy over a night after i got my X58 setup and i had newer looked back at AMD since. And unless AMD Zen is a game changer for AMD i am still not gonna look back.

The only bad thing i can say about Intels chips today is that there prices are on the hign side and even today an intel Quad-core cpu is still consider a hign-end cpu even after 10 years the first Quad-core came out since the core 2 quad Q6600.

So my vote is for now Intel.

 

[dorsetknob]

i wanted to vote for a Loongson !!!

 

[64K]

These type of threads generally don't end well. Some people get emotional over a brand and a moderator has to come along and clean it up.

I would say go for Intel. If AMD brings the performance with Zen then that would be a good option too. If you need an 8 core then you will pay a lot for it from Intel.

 

[FireFox]

PC for.................what Knoxx? Gaming? Productivity? Both? What's the budget?

I am not building a pc, it's just a question about what would you choose between the two.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Currently, Intel. When Zen launches, well, we'll see. Too soon to tell yet.

 

[FireFox]

This is something funny that i have found.

AMD Zen is going to be exciting but there's no way AMD is going to be able to catch Intel in performance. There was a big discussion about this a little while back. AMD just doesn't have the fund to turn out CPUs like Intel can.

 

[alucasa]

Well, if you are just asking...,
this thread is going down in flames sooner or later.

 

[FYFI13]

Frankly depends on needs, wants and budget.

Not going to vote in poll because it all boils down to ^^THIS.

 

[hat]

This is something funny that i have found.

AMD Zen is going to be exciting but there's no way AMD is going to be able to catch Intel in performance. There was a big discussion about this a little while back. AMD just doesn't have the fund to turn out CPUs like Intel can.

Intel's been pulling punches until now. They've won the performance wars. They've been focusing mostly on the integrated graphics and efficiency for a while now, while boosting performance ever so slightly and increasing the price tag. If AMD can catch up, they'll gain more money to fight back with and hopefully turn the franchise around.

 

[biffzinker]

I am not building a pc, it's just a question about what would you choose between the two.

The older platform still based on the 970/990 chipsets are a bigger turn off for me. Otherwise the FX isn't that awful to pass over considering the price/performance it still offers.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

AMD Zen is going to be exciting but there's no way AMD is going to be able to catch Intel in performance. There was a big discussion about this a little while back. AMD just doesn't have the fund to turn out CPUs like Intel can.

AMD recently came out with a claim that Zen beat one of the high end Intel CPUs (forgot which one), but it was based solely on a render speed of a picture, and only a quick image onscreen showing it completing. They've not really proven yet it can compete with or beat Intel CPUs, but they're already making bold claims. So don't count them out. Many are speculating it will come down to how much they charge for Zen, because most have faith it will at least be close on performance.

 

[SonicZap]

Depends on price. Below i3 price I prefer AMD CPUs simply because 2 cores just don't cut it anymore, plus the Pentiums tend to have low clock speeds. For example, if I had to choose between an Athlon II X4 860K or a Pentium, I'd pick the quad-core Athlon.

i3 price and above Intel is currently generally the better buy. While the FX series still shine in multi-threaded workloads, in gaming and other tasks that don't scale well with threads, Intel's advantage is simply too big. Plus there's also lower power use and AMD chipsets being ancient, lacking support for USB 3, PCI-E 3.0 and probably quite a few other features found on modern Intel chipsets. Intel's chipset advantage alone is so big that even if the FX CPUs gave slightly better performance for the price, I'd still get an Intel CPU because of AMD AM3+ motherboards' ancient chipsets.

AMD APUs generally aren't a good buy either, since you can grab an i3 / Athlon II X4 860K and a discrete graphics card and enjoy superior performance for almost the same price.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Why would anyone choose anything over Intel right now? Once Zen is out that could change.

 

[Toothless]

Obviously Qualcomm is best.

 

[blobster21]

The last AMD cpu i bought was an Athlon FX60. I'm not planning to go green anytime soon.