AMD Or Intel?

[socket7]

socket, gHz barely matter these days. A Core Duo at 2.6 GHz will lose to a Core 2 Duo (more advanced architecture and other advances) running at 2.2 GHz.

A Pentium 4 at 3.8 GHz or whatever their highest numbers got to will still lose to the lowest i3.

Thank you for proving my point.

I\'m not a computer engineer, but I DID sleep at a holiday inn express last night.

[TNTGODZZ]

go intel for gaming. get an i3 2100, and a h61 mobo. 8gb of ram, and your sorted. amd is very limited on performance at the moment. though if you can go for an i5 2300, or if you overclock, go for the 2500k, they blow amd out of the water. no question.

[comradephil]

Of course, i3\'s are cheap, but the motherboards? Christ.

[CardBoardBoxProcessor]

well with AMDs dulldozer incident.... probably intel.

[sjwt]

Find a good local but cheep computer shop, most places have an independent good one.. and buy what they have with a cheep combo deal, that gives you room to get more ram, and any thing else you want..

If you have time, look at the different chip sets on offer in the cheep combos, make sure you are getting something near the top of what your MB can take, if not keep an eye on Ebay, if you buy at the right time you can get a good boost later in your computers life!

I have never had a problem with AMD+Nvidia, and I get FPS\' as per expected for my video card.. *shugs*

You can also get good combo deals on ebay, but I find their is all-ways *something* wrong.. I though my current MB wasn\'t going to work at all with a HDD, until I worked out 2 of the 6 SATA\'s ports just didn\'t work!

[Radsoc]

Well, the only way to find out is to find reviews and look at test results. There is no general AMD > Intel, or Intel > AMD result.

[TNTGODZZ]

i beg to differ:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

[Cooly568]

For my budget I wanted to go for this.

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition AM3 CPU - 3.40GHz, Socket AM3, 6MB Cache, Processor with Fan

I have a Athlon II X2 right now and it whoops butt for $78.

[Cooly568]

Is the AMD FX-8150 a gaming processor? All I want is a simple yes or no.

[TNTGODZZ]

all processors are gaming, so yes. but for a real answer:

it is ok, but there are better intel alternatives for the same price (a 2500k for eg)

[LukeTim]

VIA 4 LIFE

[Blinkin]

AMD is the best on \'price for what you get\' Intel seems the best for gaming.

I think this doesn\'t matter. I\'ve been using AMD for gaming for a quite long time without problems.

[cardgame]

i beg to differ:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Proving my point about GHz meaning almost nothing.

The 2.4 GHz i7 in my MBP is more than twice as powerful as my 2.6GHz AMD Phenom II X4 810.

[socket7]

i beg to differ:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

That is an awesome list for balancing performance against price point.

[Amram]

Ghz stopped mattering back before the old Athlons came out. there are two concerns of importance, and possibly even more now. One is the frequency that the chip performs its instructions.

Another, which I have VERY rarely seen any mention of, is how many of instructions it can perform in one cycle.

Yet another is how efficiently is it organised. Does this ship leave itself with one more thing to do while the other is finished completely after the same number of steps?

The i7\'s when they launched, despite despite seemingly being slower than top end Core 2 Quads, were FAR faster chips.

Frequency hasn\'t really mattered for almost a decade now. it matters when comparing two of the same chip. But how those chips are designed and built matters FAR more when comparing two different chips these days.

As a simple answer, ANY cpu can be used for gaming, just like ANY car can be used for racing. All of them are capable of completing the course, all of them can do however many laps and reach the finish line. Some cars for roughly the same price range are FAR faster and better suited to racing however, the same is true of processors.

Right now, there is little difference in price from an intel i3 or i5 build, and an AMD build, assuming similar processor pricing. Where they differ is that right now, in nearly all cases, the intel builds will offer higher performance almost completely across the board, and will last you longer(the AMD chips won\'t die or anything, but being slower, they become effectively useless sooner).

So, your last main question, was that a gaming chip? Yes. It will play games just fine

You question should have been, was that the best gaming chip for the price range, and im afraid it most definitely isn\'t.

and yes, Passmark has an exhaustive listing of compared items. their bechmark likely isn\'t perfect, so there will be oddities, but overall, I think it holds up as a solid starting point for deciding.

[LukeTim]

Proving my point about GHz meaning almost nothing.

The 2.4 GHz i7 in my MBP is more than twice as powerful as my 2.6GHz AMD Phenom II X4 810.

The thing is that, although they both implement the x86 instruction set, Intel and AMD CPUs are both very different internally.

The instruction decoders in particular are very different, and as a result the Clock Frequency to Instruction Execution Frequency ratio is quite different... leading to different performance at the same or similar Clock Frequency.

[Mojavi-Viper]

This is the reason I do not buy Intel. Most people probably won\'t care or think about this kind of stuff but I do, and I still feel that Intel is just doing it again.

[what-the]

Purely on Windows gaming I would choose Intel. Anything else and I would go with AMD.

[Cooly568]

I have decided. I am going for this processor. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7073162&sku=I69-2500

[Caesar15]

I have decided. I am going for this processor. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7073162&sku=I69-2500

Congratulations, you should be using that for a little while, what games do you plan on playing?

[Cooly568]

Congratulations, you should be using that for a little while, what games do you plan on playing?

Kerbal space program, Minecraft... with lots of explosions, and other games. I don\'t know if I actually will go with this because it is JUST above my price range.

[Radsoc]

What\'s your current CPU?

I would wait for Ivy Bridge + 1 month, that is about to be released.

[Cooly568]

What\'s your current CPU?

I would wait for Ivy Bridge + 1 month, that is about to be released.

Currently, I own a AMD Athlon 64 7850 Black Edition Dual Core 2.8 GHz. I think I have officially decided I want a AMD Phenom II X4 3.4 GHz

I also don\'t want to wait to upgrade because one of my RAM sticks just got corrupted so I am only running 2GB of 400MHz DDR2 RAM. I can\'t play KSP and DDR2 ram costs so much. Also my processor is a little slow. I want to get 16GB of 1333MHz RAM. I also have a $300 price limit.

[Caesar15]

Kerbal space program, Minecraft... with lots of explosions, and other games. I don\'t know if I actually will go with this because it is JUST above my price range.

Yah your good right there.

[cardgame]

You need a new motherboard to run DDR3 RAM.