Are you seriously saying that a dual core Core i3-2100 is going to demolish a 6 core 1090t in every work load/application out there? Edit: Whoops. I misread what you wrote, the Core i3-2100 will likely on give the Phenoms are run for their money in single threaded apps.
Yeah - stuff that doesn't thread really well, not just single threaded. Three threads is probably the limit.
I've never heard of anyone having heat problems with AMD cpu at stock settings; in fact, I'd wager the GPU is likely to factor more so in heat dissipation. I'm more than certain that the average case can hold a Phenom processor without much issue.
Not temperature; but you need a beefier (more expensive) cooler to dissipate more heat, otherwise it's going to have to be noisier or a lot hotter at that TDP - you can't make it whisper quiet with the stock cooler, or a low profile cooler.
AMD does demand more power, but the processors are about equivalent in heat dissipation.
No. If it uses more power, it outputs more heat. Power is energy, heat is energy; very little is transmitted outside the CPU, so what comes in must come out. Whether it's an issue with large cooler is debatable, with stock coolers and small poorly ventilated cases (OEM PCs anyone?) is a real issue unless you like whirring fans.
Since, for some reason I can't link to their site here, Hardware Canucks also show some interesting temps for the Core i3-2120 and Core i5-2400 in comparison to a Phenom II 1090t and Phenom 975.
Go look up the respective reviews for each on that site, and make sure to select the temperature section in each review.
Yeah well HC uses a big-ass serious cooler that has those heat loads for breakfast. That's not the point.
Well, that anandtech link I just provided showed otherwise. The 955 was putting a thrashing on the 2100 in video production. And I'm not too familiar with benches on web browsing.
I didn't take that into consideration - it's obviously faster. For transcoding, Quick Sync will give the X4 and X6 a good beating, but for production, yeah, they'll be faster. If you care about the speed of video production software, you should have the budget for faster chips, like a 2600 or even an i7 970 (or Xeon equivalents).
Only thing I saw was the watts; I've found nothing to validate the "higher" temps being an issue with AMD claim.
Once again, not temperature, but noise. To keep same noise you'll probably have to run them quite close to the limit (80-90C) which isn't too comfortable. Yeah, it'll probably work, but it's not really ideal. Plus, power draw CAN be an issue - SFX PSUs, hell, even ITX PSUs (PicoPSU and all that stuff) - drawing double for not much more performance ain't exactly an exciting proposition in SFF stuff; besides, most OEMs don't use 400-500W PSUs that we can all get for cheap - they get 200-300W and it can get quite cramped in there.
I'm completely lost now. Also, correction on one of the above posts, I misread something Iconik wrote.
Web browsing isn't really intensive enough to take advantage of Phenom's extra cores - even with Chrome.