AMD Phenom II vs Intel I7 (take price AND performance into account)

Depends on what you're doing

The 'sweetness' would probably be a PhII 720 ...

PhII 720 / Biostar 790gx: $212
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.165025

PhII 720 / Foxconn 790fx: $245 (before $34 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.165028


The BIOS in the Biostar mobo seems to have the most *magic mojo* in unlocking the 4th core

Haha Good joke.

Simply put:

SLI/CF or vid encoding - i7

Single card + most other stuff - Phenom II

This myth has been repeated so many times that many people just take it as a fact without bothering to actually look for any proof.

I did some analysis of 3DMark Vantage GPU scores available on their "ORB". With two and three card 4850 and 4870 cards on various CPU the results were actually very similar regardless of brand. Amusingly the results show that the i7 does not scale as well. (I attempted to use the most "average" scores available for the various CPU. Of course there are extremes; but even if you ignore the average and use the extreme results for both brands it does not support the myth.)

i would think one of the AM3 phenom II's would provide a better comparison. they have higher HT speeds, and more cache, which can help performance.

exactly

PS im impressed how everyone is being fairly factual (for the most part) and not just picking favorites. props guys

The PII AM3 quad core will be an interesting comparison with i7 as its more apples for apples.
Both will be quad core DDR3 based systems and flagship CPUs.

Its in great anticipation I await for AM3 quad core 3.2ghz out the box PII's to arrive on April the 20th so I can then decide what to build, i7 or PII...

My rig will be used 95% of the time for gaming, but I want something that will last as best as possible, intel or AMD doesnt matter either way to me.

I highly doubt that Intel would design a chipset for a single processor series. Links please.

Personally, from the reviews I've read cf / sli performance is more dependent on the chipset than the CPU used. As far as CPU performance goes, most reviews show the i7 out in front by a fair margin in most applications.

Overall, the Phenom II has a much better price-performance ratio because the Phenom II X4 920, decent AM2+ motherboard, and DDR2-1066 RAM are SO much less expensive than an i7 920, decent LGA1366 board, and DDR3-1066/1333 memory. The i7 920 is certainly faster than an X4 920, but unless you're doing a ton of video rendering or encoding (where the i7 really shines), it's not that much faster to warrant the extra price, in my opinion. Plus, the Phenom IIs use less power than i7s, run cooler, and overclock nearly as well.

@Croc: LGA1366 most certainly does have an upgrade planned. The X58 chipset is only going to be used on LGA1366, but Intel will continue to provide new chips for LGA1366 for some time. The next chip planned for LGA1366 is a 32 nm, six-core unit called Gulftown. Like the current Bloomfield i7s, Gulftown will be available in a few speed grades and will be the only new chip shipped for the socket at the time (there are supposedly not going to be any 32 nm quads for LGA1366, only the six-core.)

Granted MU.

Kassler is a amd fanboy. So that statement was directed towards him.


You can run a PII system and a sempron system and not notice the difference. He is/was just doing his normal troll post.

And in practical use as you say you wouldnt notice the difference between a Intel Pentium E2220 and a i7 extreme. Or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400 and a PII 940 BE.

If this so called pratical use is all you need your machine to do you dont need any new cpus period. Yes most people are fine with Pent 4s and 512mb of ram.

The i7 just doesnt do well in benchmarks. It just doesnt do well in crap like 3dmark. It peforms in real world apps.

For the average person, of course PII is the better buy. I wouldnt even give the ave. person that much power myself.


But if you do do work with heavy cpu loads thats where the PII i7 convo should be. Is it worth it for you to spend extra on the intel for the performance increase? That depends on what your machine will do.

But anybody that says ohhhh hey I cant tell the difference between them is either a fanboy or somebody using a machine that is already more powerfull than they need. Or somebody that just likes to make there e-penis bigger.

Im about to upgrade my x2 6000 to phenom 2 955 at 3.2 ghz. Which has been reported to easily hit 4 ghz on air cooling. Price isnt known yet since it releases on April 20th. My guess is it will be below the i7 920 price of $288. I plan on OCing it to 4 ghz or higher and already have 4 Gb of DDR3 1333 memory and a DFI Socket AM3 motherboard from NewEgg. Just waiting on the release of the 955. Hopefully it will be under $250.

Athlon X2 users have been waiting for these bloody apps for years now. The Athlons are already independant core so how are these apps going to kill off their performance? If these multithread apps help Nehalem then I expect/suspect that they will also help the Athlon X2's. Thank the lord that we might finally be able to head off in the right direction now that someone has eventually seen the light and caught up.

lol soldier everytime, what is with you and including a picture of your set-up...i swear it's like you love tos how it off, it is nice though, not too much differnt than mine I guess, except for all the speakers.

Which mouse are u using btw, it's razer soemthing I know, but not sure whihc, how is the tracking in FPS and RTS's?

well since were showing off rigs lol,,

why the phenom 2 920 and not 940?

I'd wait for the D0 stepping of the i920 - Anandtech oced it to 4.3GHz on air stable. Besides, 2 or 3 weeks ago Microcenter had the C0 stepping for $199.99 .

Tankguys.com will guarantee a D0 stepping but they want $380 or some such. Better to go shopping at Microcenter and look for the SLBEJ label code, and save yourself some $$.

I did not miss the point. Your point is just flat out stupid.

The D0 stepping is a slight tweak to the original shipping version of the Core i7. New steppings are small tweaks that may do any number of things:

- Fix bugs that are present in the original stepping, such as how the B3 stepping of the original Phenom fixed the TLB bug.
- Tweak with the silicon to reduce thermal output, such as how the G0 stepping of the Core 2 Quad Q6600 brought the TDP down to 95 watts from the original B3 stepping's 105 watts.
- Provide an actual smaller silicon die for reduced-cache processors. An example is the B2-stepping Core 2 Duo E6300 and E6400s actually had 4 MB of L2 cache onboard, but half was disabled. An L2 stepping E6300 has a smaller die with only 2 MB of cache onboard.
- I am sure there are more that I didn't list, but you get the general idea.

Note that AMD and Intel handle steppings a little differently. Intel "starts" their steppings for a particular CPU line on a particular transistor size (such as 65 nm Pentium 4) with B0 and then goes up alphabetically and numerically from there as they continue to make tweaks. They restart their numbering/lettering when they get a new transistor size or start making a new CPU line (such as 65 nm Core 2). AMD starts their steppings for a particular CPU family (such as the K8 Athlon 64s) with a certain letter+number, such as B2 or C0. They only increment the number for new steppings of the same CPU line. It takes a process shrink or new major features to be added to increment the letter. An example of each:

Intel
1. 65 nm Pentium D initial shipping version: B1, fastest CPU was the 955EE.
- Revision C1 reduced the TDP in some chips from 130 W to 95 W and allowed Intel to ship the 965EE.
- Revision D1 reduced the TDP in some chips from 130 W to 95 W.
2. 65 nm Core 2 initial stepping version: B2, only Core 2 Duos shipped.
- Revision B3 allowed the Core 2 Quads.
- Revision L2 gave the 2 MB L2 parts a new, smaller die.
- Revision M0 reduced the minimum voltage on the chips considerably.
3. 45 nm Core 2 initial stepping: C0


AMD
1. Athlon 64 initial stepping: C0/CG
- Stepping D0 was the 90 nm 512 KB L2 Winchester Athlon 64s (no SSE3)
- Stepping E3 was 90 nm 512 KB L2 *with* SSE3.
- Stepping E4 introduced the X2 Manchester with 2x512 KB L2 and introduced the 1 MB L2 single-core San Diego.
- Stepping E6 introduced the X2 Toledo with 2x1 MB L2.
- Stepping F2 introduced DDR2 with Sockets AM2 and LGA1207.
- Stepping F3 introduced slightly faster versions of existing AM2/F CPUs.
- Stepping G1 introduced the first 65 nm chips.
- Stepping G2.introduced slightly faster versions of the existing CPUs.
2. Phenom initial stepping: B2
- Stepping B3 fixed the Phenom TLB bug.
- Stepping C2 introduced the 45 nm process, AM3/DDR3 support, and more L3 cache.

The classic debate, Intel or AMD. Both companies make wonderful products. I myself switched to AMD a very long time ago, long before the first GHz CPU's, and I have not once had a single regret.

Today however, the price vs performance is why I stick with AMD. I never understand why people think they need an overly priced i7 in order to build a high-end gaming rig. There is just too much misinformation out there. I have been building systems, as a business, for well over 10 years. I have been building my own since the days of the 486. I also run 6 systems in my home at the moment, one for each member of my family.

Let me start off by saying, an AMD PII 940 or higher will perform on par with an i7 build of comparable hardware in ANY game on the market today or anticipated within the next year. Perhaps even longer. Having worked on many i7 builds and doing many in-house gaming benchmarks. There is not a single person on the planet that could see a difference in real world use and gaming between the two systems without benchmark software. You can sit down behind two comparable builds, one i7 and one PII 940+, fire up any game and you will not be able to tell what build is what.

I am not sure where these misconceptions got started or why so many people buy into it. Sure the i7 line is a killer CPU and can handle certain tasks better than any other consumer CPU. However in real world use, gaming, and for 95% of consumers, an PII quad will do anything you ask of it and play any game you throw at it as long as your other hardware is up to par and it costs a significant amount less.

My build happens to be a PII 955 with dual HIS Radeon HD 4870 IceQ 4+ turbos and I can play any game on the market at all max settings at 1600x900 with incredible framerates. Heck, even before I added the second GPU, there was not a game I could not already run all maxed out with the same results.

Anyway, this is just my 2 cents to the PII vs i7 debate, don't buy into all the hype. In the end, you will just be wasting your money.

/opinions

Here's the thing, and I know this is one way to tell that review sites are biased towards Intel. How often do you see a Core 2 Quad Q9400 compared to an i7-920? NEVER! That's because they know it's a stupid comparison. AMD didn't make the Phenom II to compete with the i7, they made it to compete with the Core 2 Quad! I swear anyone who doesn't understand that is a total loser! How can ANYTHING directly compete in performance with an i7? Even a Core 2 Extreme QX9770 can't properly do so. The Phenom II has the i7 CRUSHED as far as value is concerned, especially for gaming!

Check this out (I'll use US sites because it's faster even though I know this is a UK site. I'm a Canadian myself...lol):

I'll do one set each with a 2-slot board, a 3-slot board and a 4-slot board using the lowest prices on newegg.com for each category.

Build #1 (Intel 2-slot)

CPU: Intel Core i7-920 2.66GHz - $290
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115202
Motherboard: Jetway JBI-600-LF - $150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813153148
Total - $440
3-slot board: ASRock X58 Extreme - $160
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813157163
Total - $450
4-slot board: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R - $210
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128423
Total: $500

Build #2 - (AMD 2-slot)

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965BE 3.4GHz - $200
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103727
Motherboard: Motherboard: ASRock M3A770DE 2-Xfire - $60
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813157176
Total: $260
3-slot board: ASRock M3A785GXH/128M 3-Xfire - $92
Total: $292
4-slot board: MSI 790FX-GD70 - $168
Total: $368

The two are closest at 4-slots but if you compare those 4 slot boards, they're not the same. The MSI 790FX-GD70 is a top-end, 790FX overclocking board while the Gigabyte has its 4 slots arranged so any hope you had of using 4 double-wide cards is immediately dashed. At that same price point is the ASRock X58 Deluxe but its build design is more mainstream like the 2 and 3 slot ASRocks on the AMD side and the 3 slot ASRock on the Intel side. As a quality motherboard the MSI stands alone in this comparison. And you would STILL have enough left over for an HD 5770. The AMD side is a better value especially for gaming because it leaves you with so much more money for other improvements. $140USD is the difference between a Radeon HD 5770 and a Radeon HD 5850. I wonder which system would perform better in games, the Phenom II with the 5850 or the i7 with the 5770? There's no contest obviously.

I agree, while they haven't been able to match Intel's performance at the high-end, they have managed to more powerful than 99% of the population will ever need while maintaining better price/performance ratios on almost all (if not all) of their CPUs and to keep motherboard costs down too. The backwards-compatible AM3 chips were also a nice touch. I'll never be sorry I chose the Phenom II over the i7. I'd never owned an AMD CPU before but I took the chance and I'm so glad I did.