What about AMD Dual Cores?

Especially the new Athlon 6500@3GHz would be interesting.

By the way: the Intel-system uses DDR3-1333, AMD DDR2-1066; that makes some difference in the price (just like the mainboard).

Ok, this is not a fair benchmark for AMD.. your testing motherboard for AMD platform costs only 140 euros and the testing top-range motherboard for Intel Platform costs 250 euros!!! To be equally tested it should be tested on P35 Chipset with DDR2 RAM.

Yannis,

Thank you for the feedback.

It does not make sense to handicap the Intel platform simply because AMD's infrastructure is currently priced to compete with Intel's mid-range. This would completely eliminate the scores for higher-end configurations like Skulltrail and the Extreme Edition CPUs, providing an incomplete picture of the current processor landscape.

In the final charts the details "3.33 GHz, DDR3-1333 (Wolfdale)" could be supplemented by the price for the entire system. Then it would be fair (you might even include Intels with DDR2 and Athlon X2s as well -- that would make a great list!).

The Linux OpenSSL results are completely out of whack (see http://global.phoronix-test-suite. [...] &u=openssl for normal results). Intel results should be higher, and AMD results should be over *three* times higher. That's one benchmark where AMD processors have consistently shown to smoke Intel CPUs by a large margin. Something is definitely wrong with those results.

Also, could you please give the exact command line for the LAME benchmark? And why do you keep on benchmarking it in CBR mode, even with the version bump, when all the work by its developers in recent years has essentially been on VBR mode? VBR is also highly recommended over CBR.

It looks to me like you mismatched the mobo, ram and also cherry picked the graphics settings for the games.

Why ... well it make the little green guys look even worse.

Bert you don't really need to cheat on the benchmarks to prove the Intel CPU's are generally better.

We do know that.

One thing missing with the charts is, there's nosorting by price. Only then, your claim that test setups are fair, can hold ground.

You have ordered the scores with fastest at the top, but what about order by price? Wouldn't it make more sense? If it's apples-apples comparison, then put apples against apples, not oranges. If it's price/performance comparison, then mention price differences also. How much both systems TCO is.

BTW Guys...Supreme Commander Forged Alliance was misspelled in your charts.

You guys make it seem like not getting the fastest mobo and ram would make a real difference in these benchmanrks.

If they didn't mismatch, what would you have wanted them to do? Only show the intel procs/setups that are closer in perfomance to AMD? If they did that, the Intel fans would whine about the lack of good intel setups.

However I still believe you made a mistake. Instead of using the M3A32 for AMD, you should have used the M3A79 or another SB750 based bored due the fact that many benchmarks have already proven the SB750 dominance over its earlier counterpart.

All in all, good article.

Sounds like a bunch of AMD whining... blah blah "fair" this and that, AMD is inferior and everyone knows it. Hell I'm writing this on an X2 Turion, face the FACTs and stop trying to hold onto former AMDominance: AMD is toast until it completely reinvents itself, crying and whining about "fair" is a moot point. The REAL point is—for the money, Intel IS the better buy and will be for the foreseeable future (Nehalem anyone?)... the only thing stopping AMD is AMD themselves and mismanagement, which has been documented and proven. I don't like the Evil-Intel-Empire as much as the AMD-zealots, but they are proving to be the leaders of CPU technology... If AMD does have an answer for Nehalem and a reasonable (provable) road map, then we'll all benefit in price competition... Until then the whining is lame.

To AMD fanbois: This article is not about the best performance/dollar platform. Please stop whining! This is about bringing what each of them has to offer and pit against each other. There is a very good reason why AMD is pricing their stuffs at such price range compare to Intel's counter parts. I still remember back in the Pentium 4 days, the Athlon64s were not cheap either.

Thanks for the update Toms.

I would have liked to have seen Microsoft Flight Simulator X included as one of the benchmark tests as this title is optimized for quad core CPU's.

Core 2 EXTREME QX6700 is nearly same as C2Quad Q6700... and E8400 is faster than those 2 in gaming, this is quite sad as Im happy i didnt get the QX6700...

I didn't see the TMPEG results - did I just miss them?

Nice charts overall though. I would have liked to see some AMD X2 thrown in there myself, since they're still being manufactured and sold.

What's the problem with the graphics settings? Both setups used the same video card, seems like a perfectly valid test to me.

790FX is currently the fastest AMD chipset out there that enables faster memory bandwidth of Phenoms on stock. It may not be the best overclock board, but for this test that should do it. The best board in Intel world is X48 for now. There's nothing wrong with the choice of the hardware.

I do think Tom's staff should include some lower end CPUs into the chart, since they are still on the market. Nehalem and Deneb are coming, and it should keep them busy updating the chart early next year.

Also, can we have server CPU chart please?

Cant we all just get along? =P

AMD has done well against a much larger competitor and you have to give them credit for spanking Nvidia (finally) with their new video card releases. AMD has won half of the battle and for a company that has taken on so much (video and cpu markets) they are doing a great job. Hopefully their new Deneb cpus will give a better fight than the current cpus.

Its laughable to see people post and get so riled up over a brand of cpu they use like a couple of posters above. I hope that I dont end up in the same old folks home as they do and get forced to play checkers with them because I will probably get a good fussing out and a black eye.

Nothing wrong with taking sides but its more impressionable when you do it with reasonability...

While benchmarks do help make some make there next purchase choice. Benchmarking is manily for bragging rights. Everyone talked about how bad the 8600 gt video card is. I paid 100 bucks over a year ago and it still plays crysis, flight simulator, bioshock, half life 2 just fine. Graphics look great.No stuttering, works great.

You take the 400 dollar intel chip, put it up against 200 dollar atholon chip, both dual cores, and chances are you may notice a small diffrence but was that small diffrence worth the extra 200 bucks?? Have a friend with the latest greatest intel chip, I have the atholn 6000 dual core and in the real world. Not that big of diffrence. So many factors decide your computer speed. What os your using, what programs are running in the back ground, is your computer clean of virus and spyware ? Bench marks are simply for bragging rights. Rember the real world diffrence is a diffrent story. Don't buy into the hype of people bragging about how fast there computer is. Talk is talk.

In the real world, my sub par 8600gr runs all the latest greatest games just fine including call of duty 4, and I paid 100 bucks for it a year and a half ago.

Guys, OK, it's not price/performance chart, but cangelini had supported their decision as "AMD is well priced at the middle range" So, what's middle range here? Where does it start where does it end?

I'm looking at this chart to see for the money in my pocket right now what is the best CPU that I can buy.

If a chart is unusable for buying decisions, then what's the meaning of it?

In all other comparisons, we get the price ranges/price points of the graphics cards, hard disks, memory sticks etc. But here in this chart I don't see anything about pricing.

Please tell me, which CPU is the best one if I have $100 for CPU?