AMD or Pentium

[Thababtist]

which do you prefer and why.

I personaly like AMD but i also am a gammer.

 

[Stryper]

AMD

 

[rwl]

I'm a Pentium fan myself. I've found it's a little bit more stable with less heat issues. (personal opinion)

 

[Kokopelli]

I have used both the Pentium and AMD processors. I'll probably go back to Pentium due to the heat issues and because the Pentium processor handles multitasking a lot better. e.g. Install a game while doing something else at the same time. From what I have seen regarding price, Pentium appears to be the best bang for the buck. e.g. Tigerdirect.com has P4 boards/processors for around $250 (US) for a 2.8g's. AMD Athlon XP is around 2.1g's.

 

[Stryper]

Tigerdirect.com has P4 boards/processors for around $250 (US) for a 2.8g's. AMD Athlon XP is around 2.1g's.

which is a 3000+ processor right? ha owned.

 

[S Walch]

The way AMD markets it's Processors is not on it's GHz, but on how they compare to the pentium counterparts.

So an AMD athlon XP 2800+ is the equivelent of an Intel Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz, even though the AMD athlon XP 2800+ is only a 2.10 Ghz processor.

I prefer AMD's due to them being great for online games and such.

Pentiums are faster at running programs like MS word.

 

[Fungal Growth]

AMD all the way, much faster and cheaper than p4, plus they are the best CPUs for gaming

 

[Word of Peace]

AMD! Faster, less expensive. They're known for sometimes having problems with too much heat, but I've never experienced this.

 

[S Walch]

If someone has a heat issue, then they need to buy more fans

AMD's DO run a lot hotter than Pentiums, but that's because AMD's are more powerfull

 

[SirKenin]

Well. I build both and have for years. I've used both personally, so I guess I'm allowed to make a couple of comments.

First, the cheaper price tag on an AMD is an illusion. When you build an AMD system properly, to spec, you will notice that the CPU may be a little cheaper, but the motherboard is more expensive than it's Intel counterpart. You also need to get an approved power supply, adding to the cost. To ensure a reliable system it needs to be built to AMD specs. If the client refuses to do that, I refuse to sell him one.

Second, the heat issue. AMD dissipates FAR more heat than their Intel counterparts. It's a major problem for them, pushing speed out of a used up design. Those things spit out more heat than most space heaters. For any enthusiast an aftermarket cooler is a necessity, further increasing the bottom line.

AMD got their behinds kicked in the race for speed, so they modified their strategy to attack the very thing they fought for. The XP rating on the CPU's is said not to be misleading the customers into assuming they are buying performance equivalent to a Pentium. AMD claims that the rating is a subjective rating of how the CPU performs compared to it's predecessor. Of course if you believe that, you'll believe that I have a bridge in Florida to sell you.

I don't know about the Opterons, but the previous generation AMD CPU's were tapped out, speedwise. That's why they lost the clockspeed race. They could not develop their own technology that kept up, so they had to buy a design from Motorola and run with it. There was only so far they could take it. Intel was way ahead of them with the P4 design. People laughed when it first came out, only to be silenced when the P4 CPU ramped up to 3 GHz overnight, leaving AMD in the dust.

Intel runs cooler, is more reliable, mulitasks better and is more stable in an office environment.

AMD is prone to burning up (I've seen many many pictures of burned up AMD CPU's), can become shaky when overclocked, and can cause many anomalies that people falsely attribute to Microsoft Windows. The truth of the matter is that they are running crappy hardware. I run XP Pro on two machines, both P4's, and it NEVER crashes (unless I sit there and play with my RAM timings too much. lol) AMD is fussier than many people realize. There is a reason that AMD spends a lot of time testing and approving hardware for use with their CPU's. They don't just do it for the good of their health.

I remember slaving over more than one because of poor configurations. That's why I refuse to sell thrown together configs. My time is worth more than the couple of dollars I make on the sale, if you know what I mean

There is no advantage of buying a properly built AMD over a properly built Intel that I can see. As a matter of fact, with the exception of the Opteron I would recommend staying away from AMD. The core is at a dead end. The same goes for the Northwood core from Intel as well.

I myself will probably never go back to having AMD in my home. I've had enough of them to do me for a lifetime. I have a P4 2.8 Prescott and a 2.4 Northwood that serve my purposes quite well. Believe me, after I've finished messing around with everyone else's computer, I have no interest in messing with my own, if that makes any sense to you.

Anyways, that's just my own observations and opinions.

 

[SirKenin]

AMD's DO run a lot hotter than Pentiums, but that's because AMD's are more powerfull

Nothing could be further from the truth. They throw more heat than Salamander heaters because they are running inefficiently. The design, an old Motorola dual pumped design, is worn out and has reached the end of the road. Of course AMD tried to squeeze every ounce out of it, but let's face it. It's dead. The core is severely overclocked from the factory. Getting an enthusiast on it overclocking it more is just exacerbating the problem and looking for trouble.

 

[4thwatcher]

been building systems for years already and am happy with amd heating issue? add some more exhaust fan or perhaps thermal paste is not being utilized very well!

 

[Stryper]

well it looks like AMD is the leader and will continue to be the leader in the 64 bit market
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/11/188224&mode=thread&tid=118&tid=187

 

[SirKenin]

well it looks like AMD is the leader and will continue to be the leader in the 64 bit market
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/11/188224&mode=thread&tid=118&tid=187

you know what bugs me about that statement?

a) The Opteron is not a true 64 bit processor. It's a 32 bit processor with 64 bit instructions coded into it.

b) Intel has had true 64 bit processors out for years for Enterprise deployment, known as the Itanium processor.

 

[pgp_protector]

I like AMD, more bang for the buck.

The older AMDs did have a major problem with head, and would burn up if the heatsink came off, they had no thermal shutdown. If I am correct (Though I May be wrong) the new ones can handle the heatsink comming off without damage to the chip.

Most of my systems are AMD, both at work & at home.

 

[kurabrhm]

Well, I have an AMD laptop which seems to dissipate a lot of heat. The fans on my laptop worked overtime when I was playing a soccer game last night. I've heard good things about AMD. I've also used Intel PC's. Both AMD and Intel are essentially the same thing, even though there are differences which can only be of interest to die hard computer tech fans. I think Intel does a better job at selling their product to the public more so than AMD. Intel does have a greater marketing strategy and therefore it's naturally more popular.

 

[SirKenin]

Yes, Intel does have a good marketting strategy, I agree. However, it takes a lot more than marketting strategy to succeed in the semiconductor business IMHO.

I believe the reason that Intel is so successful is because they have cornered the corporate market. They offered quality products when a struggling AMD couldn't offer a comparable product to a very picky and demanding corporate clientelle. Now corporations don't want to go to the expense of switching over, and there really is no reason to. It is my opinion that the AMD product does not stand up in the corporate environment.

 

[pieman3141]

"Leavign AMD in the dust"? I'd hardly say so. The P4 has an EXTREMELY long pipeline, causing inefficiency. This is why prediction is needed, and if it's wrogn, it has to restart a 20-step pipeline. AMD's is shorter, allowing for more work per clockspeed. a 2.1 GHz AMD is comparable to a 3.0 GHz P4 on many benchmarks. For memory-intensive apps, like Q3A, P4 beats AMD by a long shot, but for encoding, decoding, and CPU-intensive apps, AMD wins.

Intel is also abandoning the P4 architecture and returning to the tried-and-true Pentium Pro architecture. Their Centrino CPUs (which are REALLY refined PPro CPUs) beat the P4 CPUs by a long shot.

It's not just about clockspeed anymore. AMD's new 64-bit CPUs are beating Intel CPUs too, even thoguh a 1 GHz lag.

New chipsets are coming out for both CPUs though, so it'll be interesting to see the battle between the 925X and the various AMD chipsets in Q4

 

[SirKenin]

"Leavign AMD in the dust"? I'd hardly say so. The P4 has an EXTREMELY long pipeline, causing inefficiency. This is why prediction is needed, and if it's wrogn, it has to restart a 20-step pipeline. AMD's is shorter, allowing for more work per clockspeed. a 2.1 GHz AMD is comparable to a 3.0 GHz P4 on many benchmarks. For memory-intensive apps, like Q3A, P4 beats AMD by a long shot, but for encoding, decoding, and CPU-intensive apps, AMD wins.

Intel is also abandoning the P4 architecture and returning to the tried-and-true Pentium Pro architecture. Their Centrino CPUs (which are REALLY refined PPro CPUs) beat the P4 CPUs by a long shot.

It's not just about clockspeed anymore. AMD's new 64-bit CPUs are beating Intel CPUs too, even thoguh a 1 GHz lag.

New chipsets are coming out for both CPUs though, so it'll be interesting to see the battle between the 925X and the various AMD chipsets in Q4

No that's not why prediction is needed at all. Branch prediction has been around LONG before long pipelines were ever thought of. Cyrix CPU's were a prime example. The only requirement a long pipeline creates is for more cache on the CPU. Inefficiency really hasn't been a deciding factor since 1.5 GHz or so.

A 32 bit AMD 2.1 GHz CPU is not comparable to a 3.0GHz P4 on any benchmarks. Here's the page to prove it, from an AMD fanboy: http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030217/cpu_charts-12.html

Intel is not abandoning it's P4 architecture. As a matter of fact, they have just released an entire new line of chips based on that architecture, the Prescott. The P4 architecture left AMD in the dust, due to the ability to quickly ramp to high speeds. That's all there is to it.

 

[SirKenin]

Here is another fanboy site that disproves the theory that the new AMD CPU's are faster than an Intel.

http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=277