Intel or AMD?

Regarding #1 and #2, you generally do not need to worry about these two since CPUs generally do not fail, unless of course you overclock them too much and do not have an adequate heatsink to dissipate the heat.

Both AMD and Intel has had production issues in the past that may or may not have affected quality / reliability. It does not happen very often, but this is the nature of the beast.

#3 and #6 are more or less the same. It's all about performance. Speed in itself is no longer the #1 factor for processor performance. For example, the dual core Intel Core i3-2100 is 3.1GHz, the quad core AMD Phenom II X4 980 BE is 3.7GHz. The PII X4 980 BE has two more cores than the Core i3-2100, and it is 600MHz faster as well. However, the Core i3-2100 can beat the PII X4 980BE all game benchmarks that I have seen. There is one exception, in Mafia the PII X4 980 BE scored 89.9 FPS compared to the core i3-2100 which only scored 89.0 FPS based on whatever highend video card was used in both systems; it might have been a Radeon HD 6950.

89.9fps = 89.0 fps as far as the real world is concerned.

skip the phenoms, they're worthless.

Ooops... accidentally submitted my response and I can't edit.

To continue... It basically boils down to...

#3 Performance - Ever since mid-2006 when Intel released the Core 2 Duo / Quad CPUs, they have taken back the performance crown from AMD. AMD took the crown away from Intel back in 2002/2003 when they released the Athlon XP Palamino or Thoroughbred core.

AMD's current Phenom II CPUs are basically a generation behind Intel's Core i CPUs. Meaning the Phenom II family of CPUs competes against the Core 2 Duo / Quad CPUs, not against the Core i family of CPUs.

#4 Gaming - Intel holds the crown here. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the Core i3-2100 (3.1GHz) can beat the Phenom II X4 980 BE (3.7GHz) in games. That's Intel's slowest Core i3 dual core CPU AMD's fastest quad core Phenom II X4 CPU.

Of course, if you take gaming out of the picture, then the Phenom II X4 980 BE can beat the Core i3-2100 in most other benchmarks like 3D rendering, video encoding,and compressing / decompressing files.

#5 Power - Basically both AMD and Intel are pretty close to each other in the power envelop when you look at comparable CPUs. In general, the more cores a CPU has, the more power it will consume. The same can also be said of the clock speed, the higher it is, the more power it will consume.


Based on the two CPUs you have choosen, the Core i3-2100 is better because:

1) Better gaming performance. But in programs that can use more than 2 cores, the Phenom X4 840 would probably be better.

2) It uses less power fewer cores and smaller die size in the manufacturing process; 32mm vs 45mm for the Phenom. Smaller die size typically means less electricity is used due to lower resistance. The Core i3-2100's TDP is 65w compared the PII X4 840's TDP of 95w. TDP typically relates to how much heat the CPU dissipates. The higher the TDP the more power the CPU uses.

Yeah I know, but I figure give the PII X4 980 BE at least one victory to show that it is not completely dominated in games by a lower clocked dual core Intel CPU.

Hey guys! I've been reading your posts and it's very good. I need a processor that can be used for a long time, like 2-3 years? and can compensate heavy games like Black Ops (minimum requirement: Core 2 Duo 2.40ghz) and more heavier games for the years to come. As long as the processor can play heavy games on minimum or recommended(definitely recommended), I will be happy with that processor.

As of now, I would choose AMD Phenom because it's a Quad Core as far as I know and I know games today require Quad Cores to play on recommended settings.
So the whole point is, which processor can compensate heavy games and time value... regardless of performance. I'm gonna upgrade anyway when I graduate in 2years so no worries.

the numbers of cores doesn't count if those cores are crippled. the 2100 can outperform any x4/x6 on cpu video bound videogames.