Is there ANY reason to buy an AMD chip?

(cf)Eclipse said:
Tom, that's a pretty sweet overclock for a G1 chip. what voltage are you using? :D
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Just 1.5v, nothing too crazy. Still with just a Zalman 9500 it keeps the temps higher than I like which is why I run at 3Ghz normal, that only takes 1.375v. Which is why I am not sure why people get stuck at 2.8Ghz.
 
This x2 4200+ was the fastest stock cpu I ever had. I never had a Pentium D or Celeron all I had in the last couple of years was Amd, duron, athlon what have you. None of those chips achieved a good overclock except one duron chip I had was a good overclocker. Amd has never been known for overclocking really good they always been known as the value/budget conscious cpu. That's why I always had an Amd cpu laying around to throw in a rig for someone who needed a computer built.

I might just keep my x2 when I upgrade instead of selling it but before I do anything with it I have a core 2 duo downstairs in a gateway that's screaming new mb and overclock me please.
 
I've been working on a build for my roommate. She's wanting to upgrade from her Athlon 1500+/ATi 9800 rig before the open beta for the new Warhammer. Looks like AMD's gonna be cheaper by $50. Both dual cores, AMD 2.6 GHz, Intel 2.53. She has no interest in OC.

AMD build for $657

Intel build for $707

Gonna work out a couple quad-core setups for her after I get some breakfast in me.
 
^^ that intel setup would smoke the amd setup
clock for clock intel beats amd x2's by 300-400mhz so that 2.5 intel is really like at minimum a 2.9-3.0
not to mention it is a wolfdale less heat, less power, etc.
 
But if you don't have the extra $50? This is the market AMD is going to have to carry until they can get better performance. When you build at the low end, in many cases you don't have the luxury of adding another $50. Especially if you're price target is even lower then $600.
 
I've been looking at benches for the respective processors. The e7200 sure looks good. Very near e6750 marks, which beats AMD5000 Brisbane by quite a bit. I'm thinking I should advise her to go Intel and use her current case 'til more money comes in.
 
OldPueblo said:
But if you don't have the extra $50?
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The AMD build didn't include a heatsink for 5000+ BE, so the actual price difference would be less. But to keep the price difference close to the same, the retail 3GHz 6000+ (125W model, ugh) is available for the same price @ newegg to newsletter subscribers and should be a bit closer in performance than the 5000+.

Performance/cost is always a tradeoff. The E7200 vs 6000+ benchmarks above are showing a 10-40% advantage for the Intel build at less than a 10% difference in price. If the buyer overclocks the original builds (say there is only a $20-$30 difference after buying the missing AMD build heatsink), there is no competition really.

That said, I am looking forward to the 4th of July sale at Fry's. Hopefully there will be a X2 5600+ combo for $80. :D I need another AM2 CPU. I'd also take any dirt cheap Core 2 combos on sale.
 
pxc said:
The AMD build didn't include a heatsink for 5000+ BE, so the actual price difference would be less. But to keep the price difference close to the same, the retail 3GHz 6000+ (125W model, ugh) is available for the same price @ newegg to newsletter subscribers and should be a bit closer in performance than the 5000+.

Performance/cost is always a tradeoff. The E7200 vs 6000+ benchmarks above are showing a 10-40% advantage for the Intel build at less than a 10% difference in price. If the buyer overclocks the original builds (say there is only a $20-$30 difference after buying the missing AMD build heatsink), there is no competition really.

That said, I am looking forward to the 4th of July sale at Fry's. Hopefully there will be a X2 5600+ combo for $80. :D I need another AM2 CPU. I'd also take any dirt cheap Core 2 combos on sale.
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Yeah I don't mean that build specifically, I'm talking conceptually. There's a lot of aggressive competition in the low-end market as well as a huge customer base. If AMD can dominate that market with the 780 chipset then it'll help them crawl back out of the hole.
 
pxc said:
The AMD build didn't include a heatsink for 5000+ BE, so the actual price difference would be less.
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Retail 5000+ BE's don't come with HSF? Ack! Yeah, that makes Intel a no-brainer at this price point, I think.

I might be able to find a more stripped mobo for the AMD to make it cheaper (8gigs max ram, no built-in firewire, like the Intel), but I think Intel's gonna be the one unless things change by mid-July.

I guess the only reason in the Desktop market to buy AMD is to root for the underdog...
 
The only reasons why one would build an AMD rig are:
- Low budget PCs with no future overclocking in mind
- Love for the underdog
- Fanboyism (Some call it "company loyalty")
- HD HTPC build (AMD's 780G mobos can process and decode HD content better than most other chipsets out there)
 
all my AM2 CPus make it past 3ghz. 3.45 on my 6000+, 5000+BE 3.2, 4000+ 3ghz, 4200+ 3.1ghz, 4600+ 3.3ghz, Opteron 1210 3ghz, Opeteron 1212, 3.2ghz......all using standard stock cooler cooling, except the 6000+ with a TR Ultra-90 with a medium-speed 120mm fan. Whoever is spewing shit about *needing* water to get above 3ghz for AM2 is wrong, period.
 
Danny Bui said:
The only reasons why one would build an AMD rig are:
- Low budget PCs with no future overclocking in mind
- Love for the underdog
- Fanboyism (Some call it "company loyalty")
- HD HTPC build (AMD's 780G mobos can process and decode HD content better than most other chipsets out there)
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I'd throw in low power file servers as well since the 780G hold's the record for low power consumption. I plan on throwing one together for my Windows Home Server.
 
Well said delix. Intel Fanboys love bashing AMD processors for absolutley no reason. My 6000+ runs like a champ, it is cool, and competes head to head with an E6600, and at the time, it was 50 dollars less. I will give Intel the fact that some of their offerings are better overclockers, but that doesn't discredit AMD as a viable option.

AMD's Triple core line seems to hit a nice price/value spot in the market. However, with quad core already upoun us, and 6 and 8 cores on one physical proc. coming soon, by the time software engineers start seriously designing things to take advantage of multiple cores, i doubt they will care much triple or even quad cores, those will be old technology.
 
AMD's Price:performance running at stock speeds on the very low end of the cost spectrum is better than Intel's. That works out better for the average consumer, who's not going to overclock or do anything too strenuous on the CPU.
 
Danny Bui said:
The only reasons why one would build an AMD rig are:
- Low budget PCs with no future overclocking in mind
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Please explain. No part of that makes sence. I actually picked AMD over Intel for my most recent build for the specific purpose of spending very little and overclocking to get more than I paid for. The entire X2 line can overclock enough to provide any functionality you could ever want, excluding irrelevant benchmarks.
 
still need a decent board to overclock. why would anyone spend money on a high end board and avoid the opportunity to push their cpu? an amd at 3ghz and an intel at 3ghz are two very different creatures. a very low end c2d like an e2160 will overclock to 3ghz on a cheap board like the gigabyte p35 ds3l. or you can spend $90 altogether at fry's and get an an x2 5200 and ecs board. occasionally you might be able to get an x2 6000 and ecs board for $130. in both of the amd scenarios, you get a quick cpu with a board the will never allow it to overclock beyond a few mhz.
 
Tom128 said:
The entire X2 line can overclock enough to provide any functionality you could ever want, excluding irrelevant benchmarks.
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while there is some mearit to this argument it is take too far to an extreme.

I had a e4300 C2D that did 3.0ghz with stock cooling on a EVGA 650LT board. it was about $300.

I now have a X2 5000+ BE @3.0ghz stock cooling ATM and stock vcore.


The X2 does fine and i play BF2, RB6 Vegas 2, Top Spin Tennis and GIRD fine. But where it lacks is in video encoding. It take my AMD 25% longer to change my mpge4 TV recordings to avi or wmv than the C2D did.


this is a real world example of where AMD falls short.


I switched to AMD for my HTPC bc i already owned the motherboard (matx) and I like AMD. Also i wanted low power output but the ability to play games, encode videos and such but save some $$$.


I sold my C2D for $80, mobo for $50 and bought the 5000+ BE for $55..... and already owned the mobo, thus putting around $70 in my bank account.


If i wasnt getting married in a month and had enough $$ i would have kept the C2D and bought a new mobo.....


therefore, MY reason for buying AMD was price:performance ratio.....


AMD is slower than Intel no 2 questions, but Intel is (as always) more expensive.
 
BigMacAttack said:
Seems to me the AMD AM2's oc well enough, except for the non-BE Phenoms.
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Tom128 said:
Please explain. No part of that makes sence. I actually picked AMD over Intel for my most recent build for the specific purpose of spending very little and overclocking to get more than I paid for. The entire X2 line can overclock enough to provide any functionality you could ever want, excluding irrelevant benchmarks.
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AMD CPUs can be OC'd. Never stated that they can't OC. However, compared to the Intel C2D CPUs, those OCs are not that much IMO. A majority of Intel C2D derived CPUs can be OC'd 1Ghz or more over their stock clocks. Whereas, at least from what I've seen so far, AMD Athlon X2 CPUs have trouble OCing' an extra 300Mhz to 500Mhz.

As for my statement about "Low budget PCs with no future overclocking in mind", that's simple: from what I see in the General Hardware subforum, newbies looking for parts recommendations have a mixture of these four traits
- Those who do OC
- Those who don't OC
- Those who have low budget
- Those who have a high budget.

Those who don't OC as well as those who have a low budget will want the most CPU power they can afford or has the best price to performance ratio. Towards the low-end of the spectrum this is where AMD rules.

Let's use the X2 4600+ which is priced at $56 and the E2180 priced at $70 for comparison. At stock speeds, the X2 4600+ will beat the E2180 with no problem. That $14 difference can be better spent elsewhere. So an enthusiast who doesn't care for overclocking and on a bit of budget will go with the X2 4600+.

Now what about those who do OC but are on a low budget? For those people, an extra $14 for the E2180 is worth it. The E2180 can be easily OC'd to 3.0Ghz. At that point the E2180's performance will match or exceed that of the $144 X2 6400+.

Hopefully the above is sufficient justification for my statement.
 
Danny Bui said:
Now what about those who do OC but are on a low budget? For those people, an extra $14 for the E2180 is worth it. The E2180 can be easily OC'd to 3.0Ghz. At that point the E2180's performance will match or exceed that of the $144 X2 6400+.
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Well that's not entirely fair though. The fact that the E2180 (which btw was the CPU I almost picked when I pondered going blue) can break 3Ghz means is it a great choice for an enthusiast who likes to get free performance. The X2 4XXX+'s can also break 3Ghz and it also a great choice for an even more broke enthusiast (=me). But yes it is a much better value than E2180 at stock speeds, I get what you mean now. I thought you were saying AMD's choicese offered no chips with headroom.

I guess I am also focusing on gaming as well when I define needs. I use my computer 75% for gaming, 25% for software development. At 3Ghz+ my cheap cpu is way more than I need for games when it is paired with an 8800GT given the GPU bottleneck in most games. For software development it also compiles very quickly but yeah if I were to be compiling a massive project I could shave off a decent amount of time with an Intel choice if I were looking to spend more.

Anywho I can see this has basically become the next AMD vs Intel thread when I really have no prefernce I just picked what I thought was the best bang for the buck on my last build so I am done with it lol.
 
I also thought that Danny was saying that AMD's were poor overclockers, that's why I asked for clarification.
I have no doubts that the Intel cpu's are shown to be superior. Facts are facts. But I still think the AMD offerings are quite sufficient for the average enthusiast who isn't doing a lot of heavy work. I prefer my AMD setup for Autocad work as it seems to be superior to the comparable Intel offerings. Of course, I have not had the opportunity to see how the newest Intel offerings perform with Autocad. Perhaps I will once I get back to work (laid off in April). I'd love to see how the Core2's handle it.
 
Another reason to buy AMD> No low end (sub $100) Intel proc's have hardware virtualization enabled.
 
For ATI crossfire, 790fx mainboards are considerably cheaper than the x38/x48 alternatives for 2 full x16 PCI express slots.
 
why because with the xtra cache the e8400 is not too far behind the quad &will overclock further erasing any advantage the q6600 has
 
Why should you go with AMD? *cough 586 cough*

Yeah you heard me. The venerable AMD K5-133, which I had running at 160mhz at the time. I moved the bus from 33 to 40.

Why AMD?

Because back in the day AMD was the sole cpu supplier to intel. AMD has the history and linneage for making very good quality cpu's. Why do you think they're less expen$ive and run cooler??? And remember when the P-4 was first introduced? It was recalled FIVE times. And intel still hasn't made a decent cpu since.

AMD also has a strong enthusiast market. Remember when intel was locking P4 cpu's back at the turn of the century???

I have been an AMD fanboy since the mid 1990's(guilty) and will always be one.

I also believe in "brand loyalty". For me, AMD, Asus, nVidia/BFGTech, and Creative are what float my boat. Your results may vary.

I could also go into the chips architecture and pipelines, but I'l let this: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~126737,00.html Speak for itself!
 
It must be hard for you to come to terms with wanting to support AMD but not buy any of their video cards which is now a huge way to also support them. :p
 
That was a very convincing argument. Now, instead of waiting for an $84 E5200, I'm gonna go dig through the city dump for an AMD K5-133
 
The K5-133MHz was a dog. Very late to market, hot and slow. Pretty unfortunate choice of an AMD highlight if you ask me. The K6 OTOH, was a pretty decent competitor to the Pentium MMX. Unfortunately it was released right before the Pentium II and could only compete on price (not the first or last time).

The whole post is so factually challenged it's ridiculous. AMD was never a "sole supplier" to Intel. AMD was a licensee along with a few other companies (IBM, Harris, NEC, etc). The Pentium 4 was never recalled 5 times. According to theinq, one *batch* of later chips (3.73GHz) was recalled due to the boxed cooler. Both AMD and Intel multiplier locked their CPUs "at the turn of the century." Lots of us voided our warranty to resistor mod multiplier locked Slot A Athlons (me: Athlon 500MHz @ 750MHz) or install GFDs.

What is it about hardware fanboys? Besides the whole make up a fairy tale history and be as annoying as possible... :p
 
Hey ya'll,

LOL..........If anything I should support Intel 100% as they're a big part of the New Mexico/Albuq./Rio Rancho economy out here!

The First rig I ever built was a 1.4gig AMD ThunderBird on an Abit KT7-A Raid mobo. Back then that cpu easily hung with Intels best and beat it often for less coin....period.

Fastforward..................The Pentium 4 was a heater as much or more then a cpu and crippled by a 500mhz fsb to boot. The chips on a 800mhz fsb where definitely nicer but still nothing incredible.

Fastforward some more........Intels first *Dual core* chips where a joke....period. I should know, I had one.

So to answer the original question @ hand. I just picked up a Black Edition that I'm sure will do @ least 3.4-3.6ghz 100% stable with a nice (and FREE) ThermalTake Soprano case for $120.00 shipped. One of the best deals on anything I've ever bought....period. It'll be all the cpu I *need*(que the Rolling Stones you can't always get what ya want..hehe) for a while coming from the Overheating POS *dual-core* Intel system I'm running now.

If AMD doesn't get their ish together, this may be my last AMD Build for a long time.

BTW...........What *Power user* doesn't dream of the unlocked Intel Extreme chips..hehe.

Peace
 
The notion that one can build an argument for the purchase of an AMD CPU based on what constitutes ancient history in CPU evolution terms is just plain silly. AMD and Intel both make fine processors today, and both have made lousy ones in the past. For the gamer it makes little difference which processor brand you purchase, except perhaps for what type of motherboard you wish to run and GPU you'd prefer. Few would be foolish to argue that AMD is currently at par in terms of CPU technology with intel, but it hardly matters at the moment unless you need to crunch super-pi in four separate running windows. In other words, unless you operate CPU intensive software with very specific mathematical instruction requirements (i.e. rendering, photo-editing, modelling of global climate change, black hole or singularity structures, etc) , buy a reasonably priced dual or quad core cpu of either persuasion with a minimum 2.5 GHz clock (or can be overclocked to this easily) that fits with the overall system characteristics you'd like.
 
Cheffy said:
The notion that one can build an argument for the purchase of an AMD CPU based on what constitutes ancient history in CPU evolution terms is just plain silly. AMD and Intel both make fine processors today, and both have made lousy ones in the past. For the gamer it makes little difference which processor brand you purchase, except perhaps for what type of motherboard you wish to run and GPU you'd prefer. Few would be foolish to argue that AMD is currently at par in terms of CPU technology with intel, but it hardly matters at the moment unless you need to crunch super-pi in four separate running windows. In other words, unless you operate CPU intensive software with very specific mathematical instruction requirements (i.e. rendering, photo-editing, modelling of global climate change, black hole or singularity structures, etc) , buy a reasonably priced dual or quad core cpu of either persuasion with a minimum 2.5 GHz clock (or can be overclocked to this easily) that fits with the overall system characteristics you'd like.
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For the record(LOL) I wasn't making *an argument for the purchase of an AMD CPU based on what constitutes ancient history in CPU evolution*. I was simply pointing out the fact that Intel has Engineered and sold more then their fair share of medicore or flat out sh*t(comparatively) Silicone in their daze!

I'm no fanboy of Intel or Amd but if I had to choose, I'd root for Amd. I like the most bang for my buck....period.

Right now the Intel is curb stoming the fuk outta Amd but I hardly c Amd going out of buisness like I've read many people infering abroad. I actually built my father an Intel Quad system for his fathers day and it'll flat out destory the Black Edition 2.6ghz budget system I'm getting ready to build.

Peace
 
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