AMD vs. Intel

BinaryAura

Commendable
Apr 7, 2016
12
0
1,520
Hello, I'm looking into suggesting builds/parts for my friends and I'd like to have more information for Intel vs. AMD. I understand the AMD's cheaper and Intel is typically faster but,I would like to have more information. Such as equal price comparison or equal stat comparison. How do they compare and why do they compare that way.
 
Solution
AMD has two platforms: AM3+ and FM2+

AM3+ is AMD"s "high end", but hasn't received a new CPU design since 2012. The top models (FX-8xxx) have 8 cores, but they're relatively slow cores, and generally only get as much done as a modern 4-core Intel CPU, while drawing a lot more power. Because games generally only heavily use 1-4 cores, and Intel's cores are the better part of twice as fast (more like 75% faster), AMD's AM3+ CPUs are relatively poor for gaming, but can be decent choices when you need a lot of not very fast cores (e.g. virtualization, or perhaps a rendering farm). In gaming, an FX-8350 (8 core) generally performs similarly to slightly worse than a cheaper Core i3 (2 core, hyperthreading), whereas in rendering and...
AMD has two platforms: AM3+ and FM2+

AM3+ is AMD"s "high end", but hasn't received a new CPU design since 2012. The top models (FX-8xxx) have 8 cores, but they're relatively slow cores, and generally only get as much done as a modern 4-core Intel CPU, while drawing a lot more power. Because games generally only heavily use 1-4 cores, and Intel's cores are the better part of twice as fast (more like 75% faster), AMD's AM3+ CPUs are relatively poor for gaming, but can be decent choices when you need a lot of not very fast cores (e.g. virtualization, or perhaps a rendering farm). In gaming, an FX-8350 (8 core) generally performs similarly to slightly worse than a cheaper Core i3 (2 core, hyperthreading), whereas in rendering and computing tasks, they can approach and even equal an Intel i5 (quad core, no hyperthreading), though still draw around twice as much power to do the same work. AM3+ CPUs do not have integrated graphics, and you have to be careful when buying a motherboard because some CPUs draw more power than some motherboards can handle, causing instability. Careful selection can avoid this, but it's something to be mindful of.

FM2+ is the only platform AMD has released CPUs for recently. AMD only has 4-(slow)core CPUs on this platform, and it's limited to "low-end". An Athlon x4 860K comes in at $70, and is basically the fastest CPU you can buy for that platform. Its cores are a little faster (5-20%) per clock than its older FX brethren, which still puts them very behind Intel's CPUs, which have cores that are 50-75% faster. A 4 core Athlon 860K is around an Intel Pentium (2 core, no hyperthreading) in gaming, because some games can take advantage of its extra cores, which partly makes up for their slowness. It's a bit ahead of it in things like rendering and encoding.

FM2+'s greatest strength is that its CPUs have good integrated graphics. An A10 7850K's (same CPU as Athlon x4, but with integrated graphics enable) graphics are a bit faster than what comes with Intels' CPUs. It's not that much of a strength though, because AMD hasn't released a new graphics architecture since summer of 2014, and Intel's graphics are relatively close now, and even exceed AMD's performance with certain select CPUs (e.g. Intel's expensive Iris Pro integrated graphics).

FM2+ and AM3+ are both about to be discontinued, and will not have any new CPUs. They're being replaced in a few months by socket AM4, which AMD claims will also be receiving new, more competitive CPU designs sometime late this year, or perhaps early next year.

~

Intel, by comparison, released socket 1151 not very long ago. The CPUs that are on it range from very cheap Celeron and Pentium dual cores (~$50) to the Core i7 6700K ($360ish). They have strong integrated graphics, and very strong per-core performance. The lowest-end CPUs (Pentium and Celeron) sometimes struggle in games compared with AMD's Athlon's, because many games expect 4 threads, but they excel in just as many due to their strong cores. A Core i3 beats any AMD CPU in gaming at $120, while an i5 at ~$200 beats any AMD CPU at anything. A Core i7 is in a class of its own. All current Intel CPUs draw something like 40-50% of the power AMD CPUs do to do the same work, but this isn't a major concern to many.

An advantage of socket 1151 is that it will continue receiving new CPU designs for around 2.5 years, and the CPUs already out on it are more competitive than AMD's present offerings.

~

Overall, AMD is very poorly positioned right now. An FX CPU can sometimes be picked up on sale and be a good value, but for the most part, they're simply not good choices for a PC today, except for niche uses such as virtualization. Socket FM2+ has some CPUs that are strong for their price (<$100), but fails in that it will receive no new CPUs, will have no upgrade path, and they're still relatively power-hungry compared with similarly-performing Intel CPUs.
 
Solution
Yes. Clockspeed is a factor, but with each clock cycle, an Intel core can do more total work. AMD CPUs do relatively little work per cycle, but tend to have more cores running at higher frequencies, which is how an AMD 8-core at 4ghz can do the same work per time as an Intel 4 core running closer to 3.5ghz.