Modern Intel/AMD Chipsets

[Daniil]

Let's talk about hardware. I'm lurking around Internet, collecting the info about modern motherboards in planning the upgrade. So, my first question is as fundamental as it is endless - Intel or AMD?

Intel is:
+ powerfull
+ reliable
+ well-known
+ very high-techy leader of industry, BUT
- unreasonably priced
- and Intel likes to manipulate their customers. I remember that at 2010-2011 Intel changed mainstream 4 chipsets per year, and all of them had troubles with compatibility. (Well as always when you faced with monopolic structure.)

AMD is:
+ almost as powerfull as Intel
+ much cheaper.
+ much compatible, BUT
- not so reliable as Intel
- a bit slower than Intel
- it's an AMD! I.e., glitches is possible....

So, what to choose?
Till this year I thought about dual processor motherboard for AMD Opterons, but then a thought better, and - now I think that it's not the best choice for my tasks (c++/C#/php coding, 3D modelling, VMs, physics simulations and fast modern games). For this it's better to get Intel with fast RAM + two NVidia videocards. But - AMD is cheaper... But Intel is Intel!... Well, you see.

Also, the next question is about Intel. If to take Intep processor - what chipset would be better. I thought about X79 or Z87. X79 is more powerfull, but Z87 is newer. What to choose?..

It'd be interesting to read your opinion.

[Daniil]

Intel has higher performance.
Intel contains more high-tech solutions.

AMD has less performance (about 5-10%), but it's up to 40% cheaper than Intel.
Also AMD has some specific features, which isn't supported by Intel, and it supports wider range of peripheria, like a classic PCI.

Reliability today is almost same, but I remember the times when AMD inflames under high loads.

[shhnedo]

TDP? You forgot to mention the respective TDP problems.

[humbert]

Daniil is right, it all boils down to the old saying "you get what you pay for". Despite the fact that I fully aware that Intel is faster than AMD - more instructions per clock cycle and other goodies - I've been using AMD forever and, quite frankly, I have no complaints. Their CPU's meets my need perfectly and have never failed despite the fact that they're not as fast. Right now, for example, my rig has an FX-8350 CPU and corresponding motherboard. I know perfectly an i7-4770 and it's board are faster, but there's also a huge price difference too.

My opinion: unless you're looking for a real speed demon and/or have the money, it's safe to go with whatever AMD chip will suit your needs.

[Daniil]

@shhnedo
TDP is not a problem. If it's absolutely enormus, I can set up a water cooling system.

@humbert
Comrade Humbert, that's great that you are AMD adept. Can you explain me, please, the way of naming of AMD CPUs? Because if in case of Intel it's easy to understand, then in case of AMD it's a "dark wood" for neophyte.

[humbert]

Товарич Daniil -> AMD CPU's have family names such as Athlon, Sempron, Phenom and FX. They also use nicknames specific nicknames for them. The one I had before was the Phenom II X4 975 (code name Piledriver) and now I have the FX-8350 (code name Vishera). The one they're trying to market now is the A series APU which includes and AMD (formerly ATI) GPU as well as the standard CPU. The FX and before don't have that, which means you must get yourself a good video card.

Despite the fact that the FX-8350 is and 8-core CPU that runs at 4.0 gHz and can be overclocked to 4.2 gHz, it can't do much better than an Intel i5 core.  Another disadvantage is that it eats 125W compared to the i7's 84 watts. This makes it unusable for laptops. But hey, it's about half the price of an i7-4770, and if it does what you want, go for it.   Frankly I have no complaints and I recommend AMD highly.

[Daniil]

Товарищ humbert, thank you very much.
I took a look to a hardware forums, and get some more understanding about current situation in Intel/AMD confrontation.

Dear humbert, can you tell, how long you use an AMD FX-8350 (since what year)?
I asking because, as I can see, today AM3+ socket is an old platform, coming to its dusk. And maybe buy it today wouldn't be good idea.
But - an alternative is modern Intel, which costs (in the same "weight category") from 2 to 5 times higher. If to take note that processor/chipset generations changes every 2-3 years, it looks stupid (for me) to spent 3000$ to a thing which you'll change 3 years later.
But - today for gaming and "living" with PC, CPU means almost nothing - the main thing, as I can conclude from my experience with my current PC, is a videocard, very fast RAM and very fast storage. (dual 3GHz Xeon processors means nothing when you have slow DDRII-400 RAM, GeForce 8800 GTS 640 allows you to play even some modern games with this slow RAM, and fast Hitachi HDD allows you to reduce 50% of the boot time and 30% of game loading time).

I think, it'd be interesting to calculate a performance of the system I can create on AMD and on Intel, and also a price of cooling system. (AMD is much hotter than Intel, indeed.) Because the price of big water-cooling system may level the cost benefits of AMD.

[humbert]

@Ð"аниил - first of all Ñ,оварищ, thanks for correcting my spelling. I have a hard time distinguising pronunciations of ч, ш and щ  .

The AM3+ socket is not dead yet. AMD continues selling its FX processors, and this is the socket they use. As you know, their selling point is price - nobody is going to buy an AMD system is the price were the same as Intel. Honestly AMD's aren't that bad, I've been using them forever and they perform OK.

AMD's do run hot compared to Intel, but honestly I've never had a problem. The cooling fan included with the processor works OK, and in my case I see no reason to overclock.

And yes, you're absolutely correct that simply upgrading a CPU alone does nothing. You also need better peripherals if you want your system to run as it should.

Oh, and yes, no matter what you buy your turn around time will be 2 to 4 years depending on what you have.

[Shadow.97]

The reason I will probably choose intel over amd is because it is way easier for me to know which is whoch and what is better than the others. I think the naming for AMD is a mess. It used to be a mess for the graphics cards too and one of the main reasons I didnt pick Nvidia in my latest purchase was that I was able to understand faster and easier which other amd cards were similair with the one I bought. It has only crashed once, when I underclocked it and took the voltage too low.
For me a cooler cpu means alot, I dont enjoy when my room turns reamly hot after just 6hours of playing CPU intensive games.

Also, is anyone interested in joining my teamspeak one day, just chill out and talk?

[humbert]

Of course anybody in their right mind will choose Intel over AMD if the price were similar. Remember AMD's sticking point is price. Also, I'm not too clear about why their naming system is so confusing. Families are Sempron, Athlon, Phenom and FX. The rest are just model numbers and specs. I have a much harder time with Intel's naming system. I know their latest CPU's are Haswell, but I'm not to clear about what they mean by Ivy and Sandy Bridge, not to mention all the others. It's very confusing.

I've run Diablo under full power with a bunch of bombs exploding and characters moving constantly, to the point where it's a little too much for my NVidia GFX-660 (it freezes the image briefly under very heavy load). However, the AMD CPU shows no sign of heat-related stress and keeps on going.