Quad - AMD vs Intel

Fooshnik

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
2,922
Looking to put together a Quad Core system in a few months when the price drops. Anyone have experience with either AMD or Intel Quad? A search for head to head comparisons produced nill.

Current price for Intel Q6600 + mobo is around $1100

vs.

Current price for (2) AMD FX-70 + Asus L1N64 also approx $1100.

To be used for rendering and video processing so more cores the better.
 
I don't believe the FX series Supports dual sockets, that may have changed, but in the past it has not. You would need to go with an opteron type solution to handle a dual socket. The board supporting FX processors does not mean that it will support one in each socket.
 
I don't believe the FX series Supports dual sockets, that may have changed, but in the past it has not. You would need to go with an opteron type solution to handle a dual socket. The board supporting FX processors does not mean that it will support one in each socket.

yes the FX70 is a processor for the 4x4 platform. So the OP can use it as a dual-socket quad core system now. In the future there may be FX branded 4 core processors that are compatible with the current 4x4 mobo.

From my perspective, here are viable options:
  • get a Intel qx6700 or q6600 now, provided that you do not like to upgrade
  • Get a cheap Core2Duo now with a "decent" mobo now and
    • upgrade in late April/ early May after the Intel price drops to a Quad-core system
    • wait until you find some benchmarks on AMD's next gen processor and evaluate your options
    • wait until June/ July to see what AMD has to offer and re-evaluate the market then
  • Keep the current system until you can find some benchmarks on AMD's next gen chip and re-evaluate the market in light of that information
 
Looking to put together a Quad Core system in a few months when the price drops. Anyone have experience with either AMD or Intel Quad? A search for head to head comparisons produced nill.

Current price for Intel Q6600 + mobo is around $1100

vs.

Current price for (2) AMD FX-70 + Asus L1N64 also approx $1100.

To be used for rendering and video processing so more cores the better.

Core2 is per core at least 20% faster at the same clockspeed. 4x4 also has very bad power consumption.

For me the choice is over at that time.

The better competition on the AMD side is a dual dual-core Opteron system with PCI-X, more RAM etc.
 
Q6600 will be $530 in less than a month... and uses a ton less power.
 
Thanks for the info. I figured the power consumption on the AMD would be obnoxious and the intel CPU somewhat faster, but I want to give AMD a chance. Seems like a lot is going to happen with Quad core systems over the next few months so I'm glad I don't have to buy now.

Regardless, calculating particle trace solutions currently takes about three days for a reasonably simple render (a couple of rooms) distributed over six cores in four computers. The ability to put together two systems with eight faster cores would rock, or even two quad cores on one motherboard. Especially at $500 per four cores. That much power used to cost $2000 or so each core to build four computers around it. In case it's not obvious i'm kind of drooling at the prospect of increasing productivity, not to mention perhaps my office will be less of a sauna. Hopefully there'll be some decent Quad comparisons soon.
 
Thanks for the info. I figured the power consumption on the AMD would be obnoxious and the intel CPU somewhat faster, but I want to give AMD a chance. Seems like a lot is going to happen with Quad core systems over the next few months so I'm glad I don't have to buy now.
Yeah it's good that you can wait a bit - we'll have to see how AMD's newer products will perform. Personally I'm optimistic AMD will soon close the gap with Intel (even if they may not re-take the lead they enjoyed for so long).

We'll see... but for now AMD only makes sense from a "value" perspective, for people on lower budgets. Otherwise, you want a nice woodcrest setup :)
 
There have already been direct comparisons between AMD's 4x4 and Intel's Quad. They are pretty much on par with each other, minus gaming. Intel's quad was better at gaming. Course doesn't sound like that was your concern to begin with.

The main problem with AMD's 4x4 was power consumption. The one machine sucked enough power to run two Intel Quad setups.

You'll have to wait to see a direct comparison between the 4x4, K8L, Intel Quad, and Intel native quad, as two of the procs aren't here yet and no public information on them either.

I'm waiting for the Core 2 Quads to drop in price, before I jump over to it. Granted I won't need that kind of processing power, cept like...once a year.
 
I dont know.... To me, the AMD quad was a big loss. It may have been close to the QX in most categories, but it did lose every benchmark across the board. It also lost those benchmarks despite running at a higher clock speed. And how far can you push an FX-74? Its effortless (literally) to get a QX6700 to at least 3Ghz. Add to that the fact that the quad not only sucks obscene amounts of power, as people have mentioned, but it also costs more?

I was coming from an OC'd AMD-FX 60 setup. To go "4x4" I would have needed all new proc/mobo/RAM, would have spent more, would be consuming way more power and generating more heat, and would be getting less performance across the board with much less OC potential. That doesnt seem like a good idea.
 
Power consumption does seem to be more of a concern for me lately. I have two X2s and a linux server in one room and without a fan to circulate air out they'll raise the temperature of the room about 8-12 degrees. It's really quite obnoxious. Even in the winter.
 
Here's my suggest for the work you want to do.

dual 1.6 ghz Clovertowns (8 cores total)
Asus mobo
2 gig DDR2-667 FB-DIMM

Total - $1600

I was looking at this setup myself for my server. Course it could be cheaper, but I wanted some PCI-X slots on the mobo
 
Here's my suggest for the work you want to do.

dual 1.6 ghz Clovertowns (8 cores total)
Asus mobo
2 gig DDR2-667 FB-DIMM

Total - $1600

I was looking at this setup myself for my server. Course it could be cheaper, but I wanted some PCI-X slots on the mobo

Unless the program is very efficiently multithreaded, a faster quad-core setup will beat a slower octo-core setup in a broad-range of applications.
 
Here's my suggest for the work you want to do.

dual 1.6 ghz Clovertowns (8 cores total)
Asus mobo
2 gig DDR2-667 FB-DIMM

Total - $1600

I was looking at this setup myself for my server. Course it could be cheaper, but I wanted some PCI-X slots on the mobo

which asus mobo?
 
AMD is claiming their quad-core procs will be 40% faster than Intel's quad-core stuff. They may be lying, they may cost $2000 per CPU, but with a boast like that, I'd wait 4-5 more months and find out. Quad-core is a loooot of money to end up disappointed in your decision.
 
AMD is claiming their quad-core procs will be 40% faster than Intel's quad-core stuff. They may be lying, they may cost $2000 per CPU, but with a boast like that, I'd wait 4-5 more months and find out. Quad-core is a loooot of money to end up disappointed in your decision.
Wait 4-5 months? Are you crazy?

If you need now, buy now. 4-5 months after AMD releases their new amazing CPUs, chances are Intel will release something new that makes it obsolete. Nothing you buy will remain top-of-the-line forever.
 
AMD is claiming their quad-core procs will be 40% faster than Intel's quad-core stuff. They may be lying, they may cost $2000 per CPU, but with a boast like that, I'd wait 4-5 more months and find out. Quad-core is a loooot of money to end up disappointed in your decision.

4-5 month window of time for intel to release several revisions of thiers ;)
 
Best bang for your buck has to be a 775 board and a quadcore when the prices drop in a month or whatever. Best cpu core and best memory.

775 boards are a big step up in price. First you have to pay for the 'Xeon' name on your CPU and then you have to pay MORE to use FBDIMMs. You should get some price break for using those things. I don't get how Intel could make such a great CPU and then totally ruin it with FBDIMMs.

SocketF is a joke. Its sad when you compare you're new SocketF systems to 'old' Socket940 boards and the 'new' system gets trounced. Oh yea has anyone noticed how horribily easy it is damage the socket itself? I swear just looking at a socket will bend the pins. Don't get me started on the heatsink mounts.

Oh yea and then AMD's 4x4, Socket 1207 FX?! Laf. AMD blasts Intel for not making a true quadcore CPU, and then AMD comes out and actually needs two sockets to fake its own Quad core system. Then lets give it is own socket system so you can't upgrade to it or from it. And lets just not make it compatiable with the SocketF boards on the market because then workstation people won't buy our Opterons anymore.

Anyways I say wait for the price drop on 775's core2quad or whatever its called. Fastest CPU at the lowest price (no Xeon name) and cheapest memory (no FBDIMM). And since you mention you can distribute this (easilly I assume) over multiple systems, this makes even more sense. I wouldn't go for a Woodcrest system unless you had to.
 
Best bang for your buck has to be a 775 board and a quadcore when the prices drop in a month or whatever. Best cpu core and best memory.

775 boards are a big step up in price. First you have to pay for the 'Xeon' name on your CPU and then you have to pay MORE to use FBDIMMs. You should get some price break for using those things. I don't get how Intel could make such a great CPU and then totally ruin it with FBDIMMs.

SocketF is a joke. Its sad when you compare you're new SocketF systems to 'old' Socket940 boards and the 'new' system gets trounced. Oh yea has anyone noticed how horribily easy it is damage the socket itself? I swear just looking at a socket will bend the pins. Don't get me started on the heatsink mounts.

Oh yea and then AMD's 4x4, Socket 1207 FX?! Laf. AMD blasts Intel for not making a true quadcore CPU, and then AMD comes out and actually needs two sockets to fake its own Quad core system. Then lets give it is own socket system so you can't upgrade to it or from it. And lets just not make it compatiable with the SocketF boards on the market because then workstation people won't buy our Opterons anymore.

Anyways I say wait for the price drop on 775's core2quad or whatever its called. Fastest CPU at the lowest price (no Xeon name) and cheapest memory (no FBDIMM). And since you mention you can distribute this (easilly I assume) over multiple systems, this makes even more sense. I wouldn't go for a Woodcrest system unless you had to.

I think you are referring to Socket 771's, Socket 775's are the C2D consumer lineups but both S771 and S775 are availible in quad core.

I think people here are referring to the S775 which is much cheaper than both S771 and S1207.
 
if you want to do budget quadcore, look
here

Best bang for the buck as long as you can live with 2-4G ram and 4 cores max.
 
Not sure if anyone posted this yet kind of lazy now to read every single post hehe, but what I heard is that the amd quad core cpu is just 2x dual core cpu and the intel quad core is 4x one core cpu.
 
dunno about amd, but intels quads are basically c2d died into one cpu so like 2x c2d - its not really 4 cpus in 1 but still they are powerfull. 8cores are prolly gona b 4x c2d.
In some tests they kick az - quads i mean
 
Yes, in april intel will supposedly release a native quad core, but AMD's Barcelona core is slated for June, and it is supposed to be being released in both Opteron and FX variants. The FX series has moved to a Dual socket platform, making them 'special' again. instead of just X2s with a different branding. The Quad FX system (formerly 4x4) was never meant to beat Intel's Kentsfield chips, but is designed to have the best impact with the Barcelona core. The day Barcelona FX chips come out, AMD will have an Octa-core, Enthusiast solution on the market. Intel, on the other hand, will only have a quad core Enthusiast solution, where Octa-core would be reserved for servers.

Now, Im not a loyalist to either. Right now, Im in the middle of building a Kentsfield/nVidia system, and and working on getting the money for (hopefully) an AMD/ATI system in the fall. But, some of you need to stop bashing one company because of 'how' they released a type of chip. and need to remember that the Quad FX system was not released as a 'Quad-Core' system, but as an enthusiast class dual processor system.
 
AMD isnt selling anything as a Quad, just as a dual socket enthusiast platform, Intel is selling a Quad, but it isnt a native quad. It is literally a pair of Conroe processors glued next to each other.
 
Semantics is all it really is. It may not be 'true' quad in the sense that Intel's offerings are 2 dual core die on 1 package, but Intel is the only one with an actual QC part out right now. AMD is bringing up the rear way too late, enough time for Intel to tweak their designs, improve yields, etc.. Result: even if AMD 'true' quad's will be kick ass (although unlikely across a BROAD spectrum of apps given how quiet they've been), they are likely to be more expensive than Intel for a while to come. And Intel is likely going to be able to keep bumping the QC speeds to keep ahead of AMD anyway.

They (AMD) may have dual socket boards already in the chain (WAY expensive but it seems a lot of boards are going that way now), but unless AMD is able to cut their power draw, I don't think a lot of people will buy into AMDs "octo"-core offerings. Power bills be damned corporate users maybe, but not really any (sane) enthusiasts.

To beat on the 'true' quad drum one more time...I would *prefer* "true" quad as AMD will be releasing soon, or as Intel will likely do in the not too distant future (ie: the PD[/CoreDuo?] -> Core 2 Duo transition)..But, let's face it, even Intel's 'fake' quads kick ass, and they got the drop (time wise) on AMD big time. Hopefully AMD really does pull a rabbit out of it's green hat - here's one AMD user that doesn't want an Intel centric world...Competiton is always a good thing for us consumers.
 
I really hope intel is coming back.., coz otherwise need to wait till summer 4 amd's release if itll b beter than intel
 
Look, enough with this "fake quad" bullshit. What Intel are selling has a perfectly reasonable name: MCM, or multi-chip module. It's a single module, with two chips on it. Both chips have two cores.

It's kind of like IBM's POWER series, and nobody in his right mind would call the POWER5 a "fake eight-core" processor.
 
They (AMD) may have dual socket boards already in the chain (WAY expensive but it seems a lot of boards are going that way now), but unless AMD is able to cut their power draw, I don't think a lot of people will buy into AMDs "octo"-core offerings. Power bills be damned corporate users maybe, but not really any (sane) enthusiasts.

If it provides a decent benefit over quad core, im sure more people will go after it, albeit, only those who can afford an extra 10-15 dollars a month on electricity or those who dont pay electricity.

If barcelona proves to be faster than Intel, I will be buying a Quad-FX system, put i dont pay ultilities.. :)
 
Back
Top