AMD or Intel

[demonplight]

Pick Your poison.
AMD
or
Intel

for those who do not know they are processors. that go inside that box called a computer, or lap top. some are even in servers....

[Aizmov]

IBM Power6 The new Powers are powerful (5.0GHz)!!!!

Then again since I'm a Mac fanboi I'd go with Intel

[demonplight]

You could have waited for the poll.

[Aizmov]

I'm voting for Intel, AMDs are great, but Intels are what on the Mac now

[Midnight Rambler]

Intel all the way baby!

[International 4-8818]

Intel all the way baby.

[Dogmat]

I built my computer using an AMD Athlon 6400 X2. This is my first computer with an AMD processor and I have no regrets.

[Chaos Proxy]

For years I've been using Intel in my laptops and desktop computers. Few months ago I had AMD QuadCore Phenom 9750, which was only good for benchmarking, overall it didn't give any boost to applications, it was the same with Core 2 Duo. Intel Quads (so far) have performed better.

It's like ATI vs nVidia or something, most of the users pick the one they are using at the moment.

Here's a good link why Apple chose Intel over AMD. - Click

[Dxon]

I got Intel Pentium D. It's a dualcore with 2x 2.8 Mhz or something. Ah well.. Something with 2,8. :P

I don't care which one. I just want the best one. xD

[Aizmov]

No No No! It can't be 2.8MHz! Maybe 30 years ago but not now

[Dxon]

then it's 2.8 ghz

[Renegade of Life]

I've always been on the Intel side of things, though AMD has had some good entries from time to time.

[Eris]

IBM Power6 The new Powers are powerful (5.0GHz)!!!!

Then again since I'm a Mac fanboi I'd go with Intel

Clock frequency is a pretty poor measurement of a CPU's performance. An instruction typically takes several oscillations of the CPU clock. A 1 Ghz CPU that does on average 1 instruction in 3 oscillations is faster than a 2 Ghz CPU that does it in 10. Then there's pipelining, and all sorts of stuff to take into consideration.

When push comes to shove, megaflops is probably a better measurement.

[Renegade of Life]

Clock frequency is a pretty poor measurement of a CPU's performance. An instruction typically takes several oscillations of the CPU clock. A 1 Ghz CPU that does on average 1 instruction in 3 oscillations is faster than a 2 Ghz CPU that does it in 10. Then there's pipelining, and all sorts of stuff to take into consideration.

When push comes to shove, megaflops is probably a better measurement.

Especially with newer chips having multiple actual cores in a single package, plus if I am not mistaken a limit on CPU clock speed was reached around 5GHz because they couldn't really make them any faster without interference and heat becoming a problem.

[Eris]

Especially with newer chips having multiple actual cores in a single package, plus if I am not mistaken a limit on CPU clock speed was reached around 5GHz because they couldn't really make them any faster without interference and heat becoming a problem.

Multiple cores really doesn't make the computer faster in most cases. It makes it more agile.

[Renegade of Life]

Multiple cores really doesn't make the computer faster in most cases. It makes it more agile.

From the user's perspective though multiple cores makes a computer faster.

The reason for this is each core can only do one thing at a time, multitasking is accomplished by switching threads in and out of the active regions at a rate too fast for the user to see.

Having multiple cores working allows that multitasking effect to be more efficient, as large multi-threaded programs such as graphics and games will receive more processing time in addition to being able to do two or more things at once.

Thus, even though it really isn't any faster, the computer is still getting more done in the same time period, and is able to run more and larger programs than a single core can. An end-user would say that computer is faster, even though if you know how it goes behind the scenes it really isn't faster- it's wider.

[Eris]

From the user's perspective though multiple cores makes a computer faster.

The reason for this is each core can only do one thing at a time, multitasking is accomplished by switching threads in and out of the active regions at a rate too fast for the user to see.

Having multiple cores working allows that multitasking effect to be more efficient, as large multi-threaded programs such as graphics and games will receive more processing time in addition to being able to do two or more things at once.

Thus, even though it really isn't any faster, the computer is still getting more done in the same time period, and is able to run more and larger programs than a single core can. An end-user would say that computer is faster, even though if you know how it goes behind the scenes it really isn't faster- it's wider.

But most programs are really hard to design multi-threaded. In most cases, you will end up with one monolithic thread. This is not because the programmers are unwilling to adapt new technology, but that most games and desktop applications don't benefit from it that much, and the extra complexity isn't worth the small performance gain.

Number crunching is one of the few things that most of the time -does- benefit from multiple cores, but then very few end users ever use those types of applications. Compilers, 3d rendering, physical simulations, data processing/analysis and server software can benefit from it in some cases.

The most tangible effect from multiple cores is that the system works fluently even though intense applications are running.

[Legend Saber]

Intel.

Not a whole lot to back that opinion, except that my experience with AMD has been minimal and unimpressive.

[Chaos Proxy]

Rev. Dr. M.D. M.P. Eris, most of the big applications and games have been designed for multicore processors since 2005. [Meaning they will run better and faster on multicore.]
Nowdays it's hard to find a single core computer, at least over here in Estonia. Everything's either Core 2 Duo (for lappys) or cheap desktops .. and QuadCore for normal desktops. :]

But yeah, AMD's have always been second. Intel is always one step ahead.

[Eris]

Rev. Dr. M.D. M.P. Eris, most of the big applications and games have been designed for multicore processors since 2005. [Meaning they will run better and faster on multicore.]
Nowdays it's hard to find a single core computer, at least over here in Estonia. Everything's either Core 2 Duo (for lappys) or cheap desktops .. and QuadCore for normal desktops. :]

But yeah, AMD's have always been second. Intel is always one step ahead.

They have been designed for it, but it doesn't really have that much of an effect. There are only so many CPU intensive tasks, say games, need to perform, and most of them need to be performed in sequence. Audio usually get it's own thread, but that isn't all that demanding a task anyways. Physical simulation often also gets it's own thread, which may merit some speed improvement, but it still needs to sync with the UI. All things considered you'll get maybe 25-30% performance gain.

As for Intel always being ahead, it's just now with their dual core cpu:s they've been catching up. For the longest time, a 2.5 Ghz Intel would be beaten by a 1 Ghz AMD.

[Aizmov]

Clock frequency is a pretty poor measurement of a CPU's performance. An instruction typically takes several oscillations of the CPU clock. A 1 Ghz CPU that does on average 1 instruction in 3 oscillations is faster than a 2 Ghz CPU that does it in 10. Then there's pipelining, and all sorts of stuff to take into consideration.

When push comes to shove, megaflops is probably a better measurement.

I'm aware of that

But the benchmarks have spoken, the IBM POWER6 outperform the Sun UltraSPARC T2 and Intel Itanium 2.

If you check the Top500 you'll find the list is dominated by POWER.

[Mow_Uchiha2008]

Intel is better than AMD.

[Renegade of Life]

They have been designed for it, but it doesn't really have that much of an effect. There are only so many CPU intensive tasks, say games, need to perform, and most of them need to be performed in sequence. Audio usually get it's own thread, but that isn't all that demanding a task anyways. Physical simulation often also gets it's own thread, which may merit some speed improvement, but it still needs to sync with the UI. All things considered you'll get maybe 25-30% performance gain.

As for Intel always being ahead, it's just now with their dual core cpu:s they've been catching up. For the longest time, a 2.5 Ghz Intel would be beaten by a 1 Ghz AMD.

But how much of a given piece of software is processor-intensive and how much isn't?

Even with a Pentium 4 HT, which is actually only 1.5 cores since the HT emulates a second core out of unused resources, I will still send it to 100% usage for hours on end from time to time with programs I have written.

At the very least, the nicest thing about it is I can have one half of it at full power for an extended period without hanging the system, I usually can surf the web for instance while my program crunches it's numbers. It's only single-threaded though, which is why it only pins 1 core and holds it there.

I've been meaning to make it multithreaded for a closer-to-realtime simulation of the model it makes, but haven't gotten there yet.

And like has already been mentioned, most games of any significant capability and almost all video, graphics, and CAD programs have been multithreaded for some years already. Putting such a program on a multi-core system will make a noticeable improvement.

[Hideki Motosuwa.]

Since I use Intel, I'll go with that.

[Twig Ee]

I have a Dell with an intel chip i think I like my computer's speed