Intel VS AMD

[schuarta]

Retired electrical engineer P. Eng., considering building my own desktop for general home use, investment managing, and a little gaming.

Would any of you experienced types care to kick around a little comparison information re using Intel vs AMD CPU's?

I'm on my 3rd desktop, all bought as complete units, and all with Intel CPU's by coincidence.

[Geek-9pm]

You must a have already seen these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices
About AMD future:

Summary
    AMD's Q1 2014 forecast is conservative assuming a 10% PC market decline and slower console sales.
    IDC reports PC shipments are better than expected with the US market showing signs of stabilizing.
    Consoles and GPU sales continue to benefit from high consumer demand

Which explains why Intel is making f more money.  The AND forecasts are mediocre.
Question: Would you buy a car from and old company that has a mediocre business future?  Well... maybe you would if there was a compelling reason.
Actually, I really don't know. Maybe some like AMD because their GPU designs., not the CPU.
But sometimes you can find real bargains on AMD design motherboards.
Hard choice. 

EDIT: Did you say gaming? You must see this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvLRZxRL8N8
He is up to date on and top of it. Take a look.

[BC_Programmer]

You must a have already seen these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices
About AMD future

This is all completely irrelevant.

Which explains why Intel is making f more money.  The AND forecasts are mediocre.

AMD's forecasts being conservative would not cause Intel to make more money.

Question: Would you buy a car from and old company that has a mediocre business future?  Well... maybe you would if there was a compelling reason.

Both AMD and Intel's revenue forecasts are luke-warm.

He's asking about their product, not which one would be a better stock to buy.

Actually, I really don't know. Maybe some like AMD because their GPU designs., not the CPU.

AMD is also responsible for the current 64-bit architecture we use and innumerable instruction sets which are in common use today.

But sometimes you can find real bargains on AMD design motherboards.
Hard choice. 

It's not the year 2000 anymore. AMD is no longer a low-end CPU manufacturer following in the footsteps of Intel. They have not only been able to compete against Intel but have successfully held their own and even established standards that Intel follows.

EDIT: Did you say gaming? You must see this:

He is up to date on and top of it. Take a look.

let's see, 8 minutes of him plugging sponsors and talking about how awesome his machines are for him to tell us that there is no pretty much no difference. Based on a single personal anecdote.

[camerongray]

What are you using it for and what sort of budget do you have?  AMD are okay on the lower end but once you start getting into the range of an Intel Core i5 or i7, you'll find that the Intel chips will outperform the AMDs in almost all cases.

[soybean]

Retired electrical engineer P. Eng., considering building my own desktop for general home use, investment managing, and a little gaming.

Would any of you experienced types care to kick around a little comparison information re using Intel vs AMD CPU's?

I'm on my 3rd desktop, all bought as complete units, and all with Intel CPU's by coincidence.

According to the Specs in your forum profile, you already have a computer is quite adequate for general home use and investment managing unless the investment managing involves a lot of high frequency stock trading supported by streaming data feeds of stock market activity.  Perhaps you could elaborate a bit more on the gaming. 

With regard to choice of CPU for a new build, I don't want to get deeply into that topic; I'll leave that discussion to others.  However, I will simply say that I think the choice of CPU is perhaps not a major concern unless you can clearly identify a specific reason for one brand or the other.  I have a several month old low-budget home built system [haven't updated by forum Specs info yet] that has an AMD FX 4130.  Although this CPU may be pretty low-end on the current CPU scale, any CPU coupled with an SSD (Solid State Drive), as mine is, has a huge speed advantage over a system with only a spinning hard drive.  So, perhaps you should go ahead and start thinking about other components, not just the processor.

One other point: many sellers of computer components often bundle a particular CPU and motherboard at a lower price than the sum of their normal separate prices.  In my opinion, this can make the selection of CPU and motherboard easier for many novice self-builders because the seller has already paired a CPU and motherboard and thereby made this part of the component selection process easier. 

[schuarta]

Here's some of my mental meandering.  Three to four years into my current pc. Seemed time to think of another pc for more modern performance. Thought I would assemble my own this time. I enjoyed building electronics in the past. Built my own Heathkit Color TV when rectangular screens arrived (that dates me). Was considering a pc with the following. A decent size power supply (I've had to replace one). Good, but not super, processor. Definitely a SSD, don't need outlandish memory, 500 Gig would do me. Nice video card. CD/DVD drive. Card reader for camera memory chips. I am treasurer for local non-profit charity and keep two printers pretty busy. Son-in-law put me on to WOW about two years ago, which is fun to explore.

[patio]

So the new build is not out of need rather an itch to get back at building...
Understood completely.
Best thing from here would be to post a budget 1st and we can advise from there...
Good to see you gettin back into it.

[schuarta]

As an experiment, lets see what I can get for about a $1,000 budget.

 

[patio]

You'll wind up with a pretty nice build...

[soybean]

Definitely a SSD, don't need outlandish memory, 500 Gig would do me.

A 500GB SSD would be quite expensive.  What many builders do is go with a smaller SSD and then combine it with a HDD (hard disk drive).  For example, you might get a 120GB SSD, which is more than enough space for the OS and software, and then store all Documents, Photos, etc. on the HDD. 

[Geek-9pm]

This kind of thinking leads to hybrid SSD and HDD
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404262,00.asp

Hybrid Drives and Dual-Drive Systems
Back in the mid 2000s, some of the hard drive manufacturers like Samsung and Seagate theorized that if you add a few GB of flash chips to a spinning HDD, you'd get a so-called "hybrid" drive that approaches the performance of an SSD, with only a slight price difference with a HDD. All of it will fit in the same space as a "regular" HDD, plus you'd get the HDD's overall storage capacity. The flash memory acts as a buffer for oft-used files (like apps or boot files), so your system has the potential for booting faster and launching apps faster. The flash memory isn't directly accessible by the end user, so they can't, for example, install Windows or Linux on the flash chips. In practice, drives like the Seagate Momentus XT work, but they are still more expensive and more complex than simple hard drives. They work best for people like road warriors who need large storage, but need fast boot times, too. Since they're an in-between product, they don't necessarily replace dedicated HDDs nor SSDs.

Also:
http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/hybrid/
Wprth reading about.
But this has  nothing to do with AMD or Intel.

[patio]

Stop...

[pcurtj1974]

I've have a Intel i7 920 with 2xHD585 and it works just fine. It's 6-7 year old technology. I know MicroCenter runs come really good bundles on AMD and Intel chips with a Motherboard. I prefer AMD GPUs and Intel chips, so I think its a matter of preference. If you only do  "a little" gaming then I guess it would depend on the type of games and what you consider good graphic detail.