AMD or Intel?

A while back, if you wanted gaming, you wanted Intel, but it sounds like the AMD's are stepping up... I have a 7970 gpu, and am probably getting a CPU for black friday. Finding the top of the line AMD is cheaper than a fairly decent Intel, figure I can get a top of the line AMD and MB for less than the I7 4790K... For what it's worth, I'm also planning on getting a second 7970 before too long and crossfiring them

Are you asking which you should go with?

rayraysfunhouse said:

Are you asking which you should go with?

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Yes, you see what I have in my specs, but can get MSI A88XM GAMING FM2+ and AMD A10-6800K Richland 4.1GHz (4.4GHz Turbo) for about $10 more than the i5 4690K, and about $70 less than the i7 470k

Have to go FM2 if I want 2 PCIe 3.0 ports

cdyoung1985 said:

Yes, you see what I have in my specs, but can get MSI A88XM GAMING FM2+ and AMD A10-6800K Richland 4.1GHz (4.4GHz Turbo) for about $10 more than the i5 4690K, and about $70 less than the i7 470k

Have to go FM2 if I want 2 PCIe 3.0 ports

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You would have alot stronger PC if you just upgraded from your G3258 to an i5 than doing a complete swap over to AMD. And actually going to the 6800k would be a downgrade going by the results i'm looking at.

If you don't overclock and just looking for more power you could even upgrade to an i3.

rayraysfunhouse said:

You would have alot stronger PC if you just upgraded from your G3258 to an i5 than doing a complete swap over to AMD. And actually going to the 6800k would be a downgrade going by the results i'm looking at.

If you don't overclock and just looking for more power you could even upgrade to an i3.

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Wouldn't the quad core be a whole lot better than a duo?

It will actually be about the same truthfully

For now I went with an i3 4150, it has hyperthreading, so it will play DA Inq, then in Jan I'm most likely getting the i7 4790k, just because it will take much longer for that to be outdated than the i5 4690k, and it isn't THAT much more, $250 vs $350, and again, will be good for a lot longer, especially since the i7 is a quad core with hyperthreading....

cdyoung1985 said:

For now I went with an i3 4150, it has hyperthreading, so it will play DA Inq, then in Jan I'm most likely getting the i7 4790k, just because it will take much longer for that to be outdated than the i5 4690k, and it isn't THAT much more, $250 vs $350, and again, will be good for a lot longer, especially since the i7 is a quad core with hyperthreading....

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I wouldn't recommend paying extra $100 for the i7. That's a lot of money for 0.5 GHz more, and hyperthreading that adds about 20% performance only in very specific cases (much less in most other cases).

If you get the i5 now, in 3 years (by which time you definitely won't be limited still), you can sell it for $100 (the 3 years old equivalent CPU is the 2500k, released in Q1 2011). With the $100 and the original $100 saved, you can definitely buy another CPU that is faster than the $350 CPU NOW.

It's almost always a bad idea to pay for computation power you don't need RIGHT NOW (or within the next few months).

More numbers -

Since no one knows what will happen in 3 years, let's look at how people who made the same decision 3 years ago are doing, since we DO know what's happening now.

This is Newegg archive, from mid-Jan, 2011 (that's when Newegg started selling Sandy Bridge) -
https://web.archive.org/web/2011011...ategory.aspx?Category=34&name=CPUs-Processors

The equivalent choices back then would be i5-2500k and i7-2600k.
2500k is 3.3 GHz, 6MB cache, no HT, $224
2600k is 3.4 GHz, 8MB cache, HT, $329

The difference is $105.

The performance differences aren't really that great looking back now (3 years after you bought the chips), so if you are upgrading the 2500k now, let's say you'd get 1 more year out of the 2600k.

Now if you look at the classified section, the 2500k goes for about $150, and the 2600k will probably go for less than that after another year... maybe $130?

Both CPUs are still definitely adequate, but if you insist on upgrading, if you went for the 2500k back then, you have $255 now to spend on a new CPU. That's a 4670k. A 4670k is faster than the 2600k, is much more power efficient, and has all the cool new instructions.

You get $130 to spend on a new CPU once the 2600k reaches the same point in a year. I don't even want to look up what kind of CPU you can buy with $130.

Always buy what you need NOW, or at most in a few months. Not in a few years.

cyberfish said:

More numbers -

Since no one knows what will happen in 3 years, let's look at how people who made the same decision 3 years ago are doing, since we DO know what's happening now.

This is Newegg archive, from mid-Jan, 2011 (that's when Newegg started selling Sandy Bridge) -
https://web.archive.org/web/2011011...ategory.aspx?Category=34&name=CPUs-Processors

The equivalent choices back then would be i5-2500k and i7-2600k.
2500k is 3.3 GHz, 6MB cache, no HT, $224
2600k is 3.4 GHz, 8MB cache, HT, $329

The difference is $105.

The performance differences aren't really that great looking back now (3 years after you bought the chips), so if you are upgrading the 2500k now, let's say you'd get 1 more year out of the 2600k.

Now if you look at the classified section, the 2500k goes for about $150, and the 2600k will probably go for less than that after another year... maybe $130?

Both CPUs are still definitely adequate, but if you insist on upgrading, if you went for the 2500k back then, you have $255 now to spend on a new CPU. That's a 4670k. A 4670k is faster than the 2600k, is much more power efficient, and has all the cool new instructions.

You get $130 to spend on a new CPU once the 2600k reaches the same point in a year. I don't even want to look up what kind of CPU you can buy with $130.

Always buy what you need NOW, or at most in a few months. Not in a few years.

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I see your point there. For $130, you're looking at an i3 4360 or so on Newegg... So do you think my i3 4150 is good enough for now? Know that I was playing DA Inq yesterday, with graphics turned up at least a fair bit at 50-60 fps, with the 7970.

If you had my computer, and about $500, how would you spend it? I don't have an ssd, everything else is in my sig

I5 4690k and a 240-256g SSD. Is what I would upgrade to..

cdyoung1985 said:

I see your point there. For $130, you're looking at an i3 4360 or so on Newegg... So do you think my i3 4150 is good enough for now? Know that I was playing DA Inq yesterday, with graphics turned up at least a fair bit at 50-60 fps, with the 7970.

If you had my computer, and about $500, how would you spend it? I don't have an ssd, everything else is in my sig

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If you are only gaming, I wouldn't worry about upgrading the CPU. Almost no game uses more than 2 cores effectively, yet, and 3.5 GHz gives you very good single and 2-threaded performance. If you upgrade now to a quad core (same generation), you most likely won't feel any difference at all.

Very very few games will be bottlenecked by a 3.5 GHz dual core Haswell right now. If you do a lot of video encoding for example, it would be a good idea to upgrade to a quad.

I agree with Mandrake4565 about the SSD. Single most noticeable upgrade you can get at this point. It will give you a performance increase you can clearly feel.

cyberfish said:

If you are only gaming, I wouldn't worry about upgrading the CPU. Almost no game uses more than 2 cores effectively, yet, and 3.5 GHz gives you very good single and 2-threaded performance. If you upgrade now to a quad core (same generation), you most likely won't feel any difference at all.

Very very few games will be bottlenecked by a 3.5 GHz dual core Haswell right now. If you do a lot of video encoding for example, it would be a good idea to upgrade to a quad.

I agree with Mandrake4565 about the SSD. Single most noticeable upgrade you can get at this point. It will give you a performance increase you can clearly feel.

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DA Inq requires either a quad core, or hyperthreaded duo, which I do have since I got the i3... So I'm looking at about $150-200 to get 500gb of SSD, if I go with the sata 3, or about twice that to go pci-e ssd... Guessing it would be better to go with the pcie, but also guessing that really, there are better things to spend $350+ on than a better ssd... Am I correct in that?

cdyoung1985 said:

DA Inq requires either a quad core, or hyperthreaded duo, which I do have since I got the i3... So I'm looking at about $150-200 to get 500gb of SSD, if I go with the sata 3, or about twice that to go pci-e ssd... Guessing it would be better to go with the pcie, but also guessing that really, there are better things to spend $350+ on than a better ssd... Am I correct in that?

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Yeah, it's the same last-mile problem. At the very top end, you have to pay much more to get a small increase in performance.

HDD -> SATA SSD = 2x the price, 5x the performance
SATA SSD -> PCI-E SSD = 2x the price, 1.2x the performance

I would recommend just getting a SATA SSD. They are much easier to sell later on, too, because people can use them in laptops.

Most people don't go for SSDs that big at this point (though 500GB SSDs are getting into the affordable price range now). Most people get a 250GB SSD to install the OS, applications, and games on, and a large HDD to store files. It's up to you.

Found 250 gb for about $80 each, so figure going with 2 I'm set, can raid them, and good to go, though I'll still have probably both of my hdd, 1 just for backup, and the other for the little bit of misc crap, music etc

I've always went with AMD because they are always cheaper, but i've always been outdone by anyone who went with intel. I really REALLY want AMD to be better, but it seems like intel is still top dog.

I dread threds like this. Lets all beat the dead horse

bmminc said:

I've always went with AMD because they are always cheaper, but i've always been outdone by anyone who went with intel. I really REALLY want AMD to be better, but it seems like intel is still top dog.

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15 years ago AMD was actually better with thunderbirds and durons.

Tbirds outperformed any intel, 30 dollar Duron matched a P3 that cost 3 times as much, then a few years later with first dual cores AMd was ahead again. They were expensive too. 300 bucks for a dual core I paid

I can't remember that AMD was beating Intel in P3 era. For sure AMD was much cheaper but wasn't beating Intel in general performance. Point is that barely anyone had P3 at home, especially in gaming PC ... just because there was so big price difference, for most users it was nearly impossible to compare performance on both platforms while for games AMD was good enough. I have no idea how can you compare Duron to P3. 1.4GHz Duron had maybe performance of 800MHz P3 while higher clocked Durons were on the market at the end of P3 generation and P3 were already 1.13GHz+.
All has changed when Intel released P4 which was actually slower than P3 and AMD already had Bartons etc. with larger cache and higher clock. Later AMD released A64 and this was the only moment when AMD was faster and cheaper at the same time. Intel was still trying to improve P4 and later made Pentium D which was actually 2 core P4, also failed idea. Since Intel released Conroe then AMD was only losing and nothing has changed till now. AMD was sitting in A64 architecture for too long and next ideas were not much better. For me the only good idea is Kabini but I doubt they make anything good from that.

Right now is hard to find any price point where AMD is good. You can read many posts of AMD users who have various problems with motherboards, low performance, overheating, power sections on these cheap boards or anything else. List is long and most of them were trying to save buying AMD. AMD is generating more heat ( don't look at CPU temps as it's misleading ), uses more power, cost much more when you try to overclock higher just because it needs better cooling, usually works louder as fans have to spin faster to get rid of heat and manufacturers care less to make good motherboards for AMD ( also release less BIOSes and fix less bugs ).
I'm not on any side but really AMD right now is waste of money no matter how you look at it. Saving on one thing, you have to pay more for another. Try to use FX8000 series on stock cooler. Too loud and CPU is barely stable under full load. Try any Intel on stock cooler. You barely hear it and you still can OC it 200-500MHz.

One of many threads which ends the same.

A few things...

Stay with what you have cpu wise, or go 4690k. If you have money to blow, grab the 4790k. Either way, make sure the bios on that board is updated to the latest version before you swtich to either.

Get a SSD... Don't bother to raid them unless you can actually use the throughput.

As far as the amd thing, woomack nailed it. Amd was on top until core2 hit the sheshelves in 07. But my question, rhetorical in nature to be clear (so don't respond.in public to continue), is if you dread threads like these, why post in it? Before you jumped in, this thread was perfectly fine and.in no jeopardy of being scrapped on. Again, until you said that. If you cant handle adult conversations about the amd vs Intel choice and answer this person's question (which you didn't) don't post.

buddy, I have been up and down all the roads you have thought about with amd vs intel, I am amd's biggest cheerleader but get the 4690K, all of amd is weak right now, the 4790K will be a waste of money.
sata ssd, just get a 250 or so gig, earthdog is just so spot on in every way.