AMD or Intel??

thisguy

Distinguished
Nov 26, 2011
28
0
18,530
Hi
I have been doing research and thinking about building my first computer. I'm torn on the processor and mother board. Should I go the Intel route and get a LGA MOBO or AMD?

I want the computer for gaming and want it to be as future prof as possible. I know most would say get the intel. However I fear intel switches up their sockets too often so in 5 years time I wouldn't able to get a new processor with updating my whole system. Where AMD is doing a nice job of keeping their socket compatibility simple.

Also what would be the best bang for your buck gaming processor?

I was thinking of either getting a AMD3+ with a phenom II x4 970BE
or LGA 1156 and i5 2500k

Some say the i5 is much better the phenom II and others say there is no difference. Is the i5 really $80-100 better?
 

xtreme5

Distinguished
they both are good platforms as everyone knew that INTEL (sandy bridge) is going to be more powerful cpu's on the performance wise but they are expensive AMD phenom II x4 970 is not a bad chip for gaming but they are cheaper this chip won't let you to maxed every game with decent FPS (frame per second) likel skyrim,BF3,RAGE etc.therefore 2500k produce an excellent power for gaming to easily maxed out each and every game with good graphics card like gtx 570 or HD 6970.

so now look at the bench say yourself which cpu is powerful

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/186?vs=288
 
Right now it is hard to beat the Intel® Core™ i5-2500K. This processor has outstanding performance and because it is unlocked you can increase its performance in the future giving it life while past the point you would normally be looking for a replacement processor otherwise.

So if you match the Intel Core i5-2500K up with a good Z68 board and some DDR 3 1600 at 1.5v you will be doing very well in a system to give you as much life as possible into the future.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team
 

ebalong

Distinguished
Sep 11, 2011
422
0
18,790
Even though AMD seems to engineer a little more reverse-compatibility into their socket designs (a processor made for an AM3 socket will fit into an AM2 socket), that doesn't necessarily mean the motherboard will support the newer processor, in this, they are in the same boat that Intel is, regarding actual mobo compatibility. For instance, one machine I currently use has an AM2 socket with an Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (Windsor). Now, that dual core is showing its age, so, I look at the socket and think "AM3 processors will fit into AM2 sockets, yay! I can upgrade to some fast-ass Phenom II chip! Wait, not so fast....my particular motherboard/BIOS is still too old to handle the faster PhII's".

Much is hyped up about "changing out the CPU", and the supposed superiority of AMD in this respect. Think about it though, by the time your processor is getting obsolete, other things on your motherboard are also going to be prone to slowing things up, so, may as well buy mobo/processor together, then upgrade RAM and video cards in between. With that being said, if you get an i5-2500K and a z68 mobo right now, it will be more future-proof than getting an already-getting-old Phenom II and appropriate mobo.
 
no competition between the two, the i5 will smoke the phenom hands down. If doing any production work (video editing, rendering, etc) then a case can be made for the newer AMD FX series, but in more uses the i5 will still win, especially after OCing.

The real question at this point in the game is whether to get the i5 2500K, or wait for the new i5's coming out ~April (called Ivy Bridge) which will be roughly 10-15% faster for a similar amount of money, and have mobo options like thunderbolt and other modern/future interfaces like PCIe3, and the possibility of more SATA3 and USB3 ports.

The other reason to wait would be to pair the Ivy Brigde proc to the new nVidia boards coming out at the same time, or one of the new AMD GPUs that are coming out now.

As for future proofing: Ivy Bridge will be the end of the LGA1155 socket, but FX is the end of the AMD socket as well, so either way you are up a creek there. The real issue right now is if you have a use for the new connectivity standards, and getting a board that has as many of them as possible to upgrade periphrials as the system ages. The 2500K will be a respectable processor for a good long time, and will get good use of better SSDs and GPUs for at least the next 3 years without any major bottlenecking issues, and the Ivy Bridge chips will last even longer as you can run PCIe3 8x8 which is equivilant bandwidth to PCIe2 16x16 for xfire and SLi.
 
the i5 is a lot better than the phenom and will offer performance for a long time.

I'd say the i5 OC'ed will still be able to max all games for the next 4-5 years provided you have a good gpu. Unless games suddenly get heavily threaded, which probably won't be the case, 4 cores is all you'd need. Ivy might even bring more performance to lga 1155 if you choose to upgrade then.

The 970 isn't bad but I think the 2500k is the cpu to get for the long run. 970 would be good for a budget build.