AMD or Intel? (Processor Decision and Comparison)

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cusconillow

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Let me start off by saying that I have experience and a bit above basic knowledge of processors and other hardware but I am far from a professional.

I have a computer that I have built primarily as an entertainment rig (mostly gaming) and have been upgrading it gradually. I have recently come into a problem when I tried to run dragon age inquisition, which is a game that requires a quad-core processor, with my dual-core Intel Pentium G3258. I figure it is time to upgrade my processor as I'm sure I can get a better one that may last me another one or two generations of games. My issue here is I'm not sure whether I should stick with an Intel processor (and not have to change my motherboard) or go with an AMD. I do not know a ton about the pros and cons of each brand aside from the AMD processor seem to be cheaper and give you a better speed, number or cores and such for your dollar. Yet people rave over i5s and i7s despite their $400+ price range and their low GHz, according to some comparisons I've done on cpuboss.com

I'd like to get an understanding of what is important in a processor (aside from everything) when it comes to gaming and also which brand I should try and stick with.

Also - bonus question if anyone is up for it. I've heard a few thins about the radeon series working better with AMD and nVidia working better with Intel. Are these pairings really that important and are the performance of them significant enough for me to not want to run a radeon with an Intel CPU or vice versa?
 
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Archgaull
AMD and Intel use different clock speeds, so even though my friend has a 4 GHz AMD processor and I have a 3.5 GHz Intel processor, my processor is much faster than his. Comparing Benchmarks is a very good way to compar the two.

The general consensus seems to be if you can afford it, go for Intel, but AMD is decent on a budget. I use the Intel i5-4690K, which is a quad core 3.5 GHz processor, and I doubt I'll upgrade until Intel releases a 6 core/8 core 4/4.5 GHz processor, it's just that solid.
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Archgaull

Archgaull

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AMD and Intel use different clock speeds, so even though my friend has a 4 GHz AMD processor and I have a 3.5 GHz Intel processor, my processor is much faster than his. Comparing Benchmarks is a very good way to compar the two.

The general consensus seems to be if you can afford it, go for Intel, but AMD is decent on a budget. I use the Intel i5-4690K, which is a quad core 3.5 GHz processor, and I doubt I'll upgrade until Intel releases a 6 core/8 core 4/4.5 GHz processor, it's just that solid.
 
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mxpie6

mxpie6

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camohanna

camohanna

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i3 is the same as his pentium in games, the i3 only has two physical cores which is what games use.

I would also recommend an i5, since you have an intel motherboard already it would cost just as much to get a 6300 + mobo as to just get an i5, which will give you better performance.
 
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synphul

synphul

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I'd go for the i5 as well. That's half the bonus of having a motherboard that supports the g3258, it's as easy as dropping in an i5/i7 when it's time to upgrade without having to change everything out. By the time you get an amd that even comes close to say an i5 4690k, you'll be paying more for the amd + motherboard.
 
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TechsavvyAMD

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Intel and AMD are giving same performance if u will consider them according to their price point............
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-3570K-vs-AMD-FX-9590
but the performance wise intel is better than AMD..................
Also the pairing is significant,because pairing AMD processor or APU with Radeon graphics card enable AMD vision technology,which will enable you to use all the features........AMD overdrive,turbo core,Mantle......
pairing intel with Nvidia gives you best performance,because single core performance in intel is stronger that allows you to use the Nvidia GPU to use features like shadow play.....
 
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cusconillow

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Alright well I mostly got my answer then but I'm hoping you guys can elaborate and help me understand. How do AMD processors with higher clock speeds and either more or the same number of physical cores have less performance than an Intel processor with a lower clock speed? My basic understanding of processors says that high clock speed and more cores, the better. What else makes the Intel processors perform better?

Also, what does the strong of number after the i3/i5/i7 mean? Are they model numbers?

Also, which i5 would be best fit for gaming on somewhat of a budget? I'm willing to spend money but not a lot of it. I'll likely buy a used one.

Sorry for all the questions.
 
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camohanna

camohanna

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i5-4460 is not best for gaming.. That would be the i5-4690k.

@OP Even though AMD have higher clock speeds and more cores than Intel, Intel perform better because their performance per core is better. So imagine this: Most games only utelise around 2-4 cores. Put the 8350 (8-core) against the i5-4690k (4-core) in these situations and the i5-4690k will win. This is because 1 Intel core is stronger than 1 AMD core. Since the full 8 cores of the AMD cpu are not being used, the Intel wins. AMD cpu's have lots of raw power, so they outperform in things that use 8 cores such as compressing etc, but Intels cpu's deliver more power per core and in the real world you only really use 4 cores maximum. This is the reason why AMD cores look better on paper, but Intel perform better in real world situations.
 
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cusconillow

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Okay well that makes since how Intel wins in a fight with less cores but how about clock speed? Isn't clock speed one of the primary things that determines performance of a single core? What else helps an intel processor beat out an AMD processor with a higher clock speed?
 
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mdocod

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A haswell core has more execution resources than a PileDriver module (2 cores). Clock speed and core count are very superficial. The force at work here that gives haswell so much leverage over PileDriver in real world workloads is a far more sophisticated implementation of intracore parallelism.

Simply put, there are MORE instruction pipelines per core in a haswell core than in a piledriver core (like double!).
 
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mdocod

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tetsuya23,

Clock for clock, 1 thread per haswell core vs 1 thread per piledriver module, the haswell core is ~75% faster (varies by workload).

Clock for clock, 2 threads per non-hyperthreaded haswell core vs 2 threads per piledriver module, the haswell core is *similar* to the performance of the entire piledriver module. Enable Hyper-threading in this same test, and the Haswell core is up to ~25% faster.

In otherwords, piledriver has to be running OVER 5ghz to perform like haswell does at 3ghz when running workloads that don't scale beyond a few threads.

-----------

The issue you are trying to reiterate regarding the compute workload differences between AMD and Nvidia GPU's is being butchered really badly. Both AMD and Nvidia GPUs have compute overhead associated with the API/Driver layers of software. Nvidia's implementation presents that overhead with better intercore parallelism (multi-threaded). The AMD driver implementation does a poor job of splitting the workload up to multiple threads, so the bottleneck is more apt to fall on the per-core performance of the CPU when running an AMD GPU, than on an Nvidia GPU, and this can apply regardless of the GPU selected. That said... From a "hardware matching" perspective, this means that nvidia GPUs are actually better optimized (at the software level) for AMD CPU's, than AMD's own GPUs. Ironic.
 
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151rum

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Message boards are not the place to ask a question such as this if you want to learn facts. Message boards are the place to ask questions such as this if you want to learn misinformation, opinions, and more regurgitated propaganda filled with fallacies from a bunch of other people overflowing with "incorrect opinions based on non factual information that is represented as fact because they read it somewhere/friend said it/saw it on a commercial/flier/billboard/advertisement/whatever and they are pro and know what they are talking about because..." Facts are fact, or is that just my opinion. Anyways, do some research, Learn something. All that it takes is a little effort. Unless of coarse you are happy not really knowing what you are talking about and just repeating things you have seen/heard from the uninformed masses then further spreading the plague of ignorance that is the backbone of the interweb...

Edit to add my favorite fact, you can repeat this cause I know what I'm talking about "Ads are how the internet is free"
 
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NightAntilli

NightAntilli

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This should give you your answer:

CPU_2.png


CPU_1.png


http://www.techspot.com/review/921-dragon-age-inquisition-benchmarks/page6.html
 
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Moonstick2

Moonstick2

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If you've the time and the inclination, have a read of this article. It gives you more of a picture of how processors work beyond 'one instruction per clock'.

As a TL;DR summary, processors include lots of little tricks to carry out multiple instructions per clock: if architecture A has better tricks than architecture B, then A can outperform B even when running at a lower clock speed.

 
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synphul

synphul

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In simpler terms, it's like comparing engines. A small engine found on a lawn mower running at high rpms won't outperform a larger v8 engine running at slower rpms. The frequency is basically like the rpm's of an engine. That's why it's not possible to go by ghz frequency alone and why they don't scale evenly between 2 different platforms. For awhile amd was labeling their cpu's as "3500+" when in fact their ghz frequency was say around 2.8ghz. The idea was because of their architecture and instructions, the cpu was supposed to perform more like a "3.5ghz" cpu. It made things extremely confusing and was actually insight into the fact that frequency isn't a good measure of performance either between two different brands (amd/intel) or between different architectures in the same brand.
 
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