What does AMD have to offer me?

[fsh42na]

I'm currently building a couple of I7 920 systems. However, I'm a longtime AMD guy and am feeling a little homesick. I'd like to build a budget system using an AMD processor. I don't expect or need it to be more powerful than my I7. I'd really like it to have lower power consumption than my I7.

I've been looking at a Phenom 2 720 tricore along with the popular Gigabyte MA 790x-UD4P mobo. This is just gonna be a "just because" build that will be more environmentally conscious

What do you guys think of this pairing? Unlocking the 4th core isn't a must for me especially if it takes alot of effort or could lead to a potentially unstable pc.

What do you guys think of this combo?

 

[Ghost$nipa]

I think you have too much money and should embrace Obama's policies of spread the wealth with a few donations of your 7i systems to me!



As for AMD.....think of it this way...help AMD to keep intel in check so they don't run away with higher prices.

 

[Patman08]

I think you have too much money and should embrace Obama's policies of spread the wealth with a few donations of your 7i systems to me!


lol

As for AMD.....think of it this way...help AMD to keep intel in check so they don't run away with higher prices.

yeah i'll go with that.

 

[Eureka!]

Get a Phenom II x2 550 BE... which has a pretty good chance of unlocking, considering that board has ACC (you need one of the newer BIOS revisions, though).

 

[fsh42na]

you guys crack me up I think I might give the 550BE a look. Thanks

 

[Hvatum]

I think you have too much money and should embrace Obama's policies of spread the wealth with a few donations of your 7i systems to me!



As for AMD.....think of it this way...help AMD to keep intel in check so they don't run away with higher prices.

Yup. I'm buying ALL AMD since they started doing badly. Monopoly in the CPU market = very bad.

Now, if they were really teh sux on a price performance ratio, then I'd switch. But they compete on price performance within reason, so let's throw our lot in with AMD. Also, they were early to back Linux and still do.

 

[/dev/null]

amd offers you hardware VT in cheap processors & good power consumption on cheap platforms:

780G + 4850/5050e = the bomb.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

I think you have too much money and should embrace Obama's policies of spread the wealth with a few donations of your 7i systems to me!



As for AMD.....think of it this way...help AMD to keep intel in check so they don't run away with higher prices.

Yeah be the sucker who purchases an inferior system for the sole purpose of keeping another Corporate Conglomerate in check.. makes perfect sense to me..

LOL

 

[Hvatum]

Yeah be the sucker who purchases an inferior system for the sole purpose of keeping another Corporate Conglomerate in check.. makes perfect sense to me..

LOL

If you want the best money can buy, yeah. But if you want the best your money can buy, AMD is a good choice (depending on how much money you have).

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

If you want the best money can buy, yeah. But if you want the best your money can buy, AMD is a good choice (depending on how much money you have).

I see your point. I own an AMD Phenom II based machine and it offers decent performance numbers.

It really depends what you use your PC for. When doing HD Video editing, you get a lot more bang for your buck with an Intel Core i7 system (in productivity alone).

Attempting to do heavy HD Video editing on my Phenom II based rig is almost laughable.

For gaming though, the extra overhead on Core i7s PCI Express to QPi conversion process sometimes renders Core i7 machines slower in GPU limited (non-SLI or Crossfire) circumstances.

 

[fsh42na]

I fell for a 720 BE tricore along with above reference Gigabyte MA790X mobo at the Egg.
I have NO self control whatsoever

 

[bigdogchris]

I think you have too much money and should embrace Obama's policies of spread the wealth with a few donations of your 7i systems to me!

I'm going to restrain from a personal attack here. Just wanted to let you know I'm thinking about you though.

 

[DedEmbryonicCe11]

Should there be a counter going to track how many of these threads have come up since the late X2 Windsor/Phenom I days?

At the moment I see it is an overblown issue and big waste of concern because the areas where the i7 really dominate in are not going to mean much of anything to everyday users. Just because this is a tech forum doesn't mean we should forget that most people are clueless sheep and too easily swayed by "this is better" and unwilling to research for themselves whether a product is genuinely better for their particular usage pattern or not. This is prevalent in all sectors of technology and will likely continue as long as the human species remains. Not everyone is going to be as knowledgeable about these things. Not everyone is even going to care enough to learn most of the facts available. A lot of people (even people that show up here, in a tech forum) just want a quick bit of advice and then they click Add to Cart and that's the extent of it for them.

If someone happens to have a good need for the hyperthreading and triple-channel capabilities of the i7 then by all means they should go ahead and get one. I don't own one personally but I do not doubt that they are a good product, both all around and in those areas they shine in. However if a product is clearly inferior for the task someone intends to use it on or of a much worse value nobody should be pushing it anyway "just because". This applies to both the Intel and AMD camps! There's already enough misinformation available so it is nice when we can keep the advice and reviews in these forums kept as reasonable and objective as possible.

From what I have read and the benchmarks I have seen; at the moment it comes down to whether or not specific applications or types of applications are going to be used. More often than not though, the kind of people that need 8 hardware threads are already going to be tech savvy enough they won't need to ask these questions in the first place. In other words, if you have to ask, "Do I need to spend $300 on processor A or is $200 on processor B okay?", then the answer is not only going to be a big fat B, but likely also "You're better off saving your money and getting Processor C for $100". That applies to comparing processors within the same family as well as across the Intel/AMD divide. In the vast majority of cases it is only after that point that it should be further broken down to whether or not $X spent on an Intel system is better, equivalent, or worse than the same $X spent on a AMD system.

With regards to gaming, since that is the most common demanding use of concern in these forums and in the general populace as well, I evaluate it with the following criteria. If your entertainment application of choice can't run well on the high-end AMD chip (955) that is roughly equivalent to i7 920 in prices (sale prices - ~$180 Ewiz sale on PhII 955 vs $199 MicroCenter deals on i7 920) then either that application:

A) Sucks. There's no recourse here. Some game developers just aren't good at what they do. Some of them don't even seem to know what quality is, they're just doing the job they're told to do. This is a matter of personal opinion of course. I enjoy quality in products whether I spent money on them or they came free (opensource and licensed but free games have been improving rapidly in recent years). I do not choose music to listen to because it is popular or due to the video, I don't watch movies because of flashy commercials and ads plastered everywhere, and I certainly don't, and never plan to buy video games based on screenshots and trailer videos. If there is no substance to get at inside the shell, then no amount of money spent on beefing up your hardware is ever going to shine this dull turd of a video game into the kind of gems that gamers still think of fondly ten or twenty years later. A "flashy" game that isn't enjoyable at 1650x1050 resolution with mid detail isn't going to be enjoyable at 1920x1080 and with the sliders to the max. I consider someone spending their money solely based on this to be wasting it when they could be doing something else like buying an external backup harddrive, buying a UPS to protect their system, or whatever else is actually useful at the time.

B) Was intentionally designed to be too demanding at max detail levels for current hardware so that it will age more gracefully when hardware advances. If someone is unwilling to accept running a brand new game on mid level detail levels then they're just being a brat and I'm sorry but I don't think anything will ever satisfy them. The only exception to this is when the difference in detail level become game breaking; causes a unbalancing advantage to those players with better systems. At the moment the level of detail achievable at playable framerates is mostly dependent on the GPU and any decent processor from either Intel or AMD will get you by as long as you have the video card taken care of. Some exceptions to this are games with a really intense AI or other complex calculations in the background, and no, I am not talking about 'bots' in a FPS shooter, I mean a real AI. Take the game Dwarf Fortress for example. The game doesn't look like much at all and most people wouldn't even bother playing it based on that alone. Once you get in though there's just so much to do and at the same time so much going on under the hood that it can really come to a crawl on budget processors once you have a lot of dwarfs swinging their masterwork hammers around to splatter kobold thieves on the walls. If it weren't for this game and this game alone I would have held off longer on upgrading from my X2 5000+BE to my 940BE, and waited for the 955 or even longer. In this case the game doesn't take advantage of multiple cores so it is all about how much clockspeed and cache you can throw at it. The old K8 series processors were much weaker in this area versus the Intel equivalents at the time and thus this would be a situation where a recommendation of Intel over AMD is valid and just. With the Phenom IIs the difference in clock for clock performance against Intel is much closer and moreover the performance of the i7 920 and AMDs 955 are so close you would have to look at other factors in a decision. I chose the 940BE because it was a drop in replacement with a massive boost in potential compared to my X2 Brisbane. There was no comparison with Intel because I would have had to buy a new motherboard and DDR3 RAM so that just opens up a whole can of worms when it comes to incremental versus all-at-once upgrades. At the same time period if I already had an Intel motherboard and appropriate RAM of course the opposite decision would have been appropriate.

C) Some combination of A & B.

In regards to keeping with one company or the other based on personal preference I think a healthy amount of that is always fine. Nobody should knock another person's brand choice of car, computer, whatever when the difference for the cost is minimal. I personally don't want AMD to fail at giving the consumer a viable option to Intel so I will continue supporting them when I can and it makes sense to do so. If I win the lottery tomorrow I'm not going to buy a hundred of their worst price/performance products available and stick them in my basement to collect dust and wouldn't expect anyone else to either.

 

[Atech]

Should there be a counter going to track how many of these threads have come up since the late X2 Windsor/Phenom I days?

At the moment I see it is an overblown issue and big waste of concern because the areas where the i7 really dominate in are not going to mean much of anything to everyday users. *SNIP*.

I stopped after reading that BS...fact is that AMD is still only par-on-par with C2Q...i7 is in it league of it's own, it might be that the Phenom2 has around the same die size as an i7...but the performance is not equal...at all!

 

[lilfiend]

I stopped after reading that BS...fact is that AMD is still only par-on-par with C2Q...i7 is in it league of it's own, it might be that the Phenom2 has around the same die size as an i7...but the performance is not equal...at all!

amd may only be on par with c2q's but the i7 isnt a league of its own. the ph2's are in the same league, not for max performance but for gaming systems. the ph2 performs nearly as good as the i7's for most games simply becuase games dont support 8 threads but the i7 is still the best performace for all around the block

i understand what you were trying to get at but you should of read his post all the way through

 

[AMDXP]

Lol. Changing to Phenom from i7 power wise will save you at most pennies on your power bill. If that. Environmentally conscious. Hippes, all of them. There's actually caring for the environment and the greedy "Go Green" way about it, supported by lemmings.

 

[FoxhoundOp]

I stopped after reading that BS...fact is that AMD is still only par-on-par with C2Q...i7 is in it league of it's own, it might be that the Phenom2 has around the same die size as an i7...but the performance is not equal...at all!

You're really defensive when it comes to i7s aren't you? I'm pretty sure he never even implied that the Phenom II was as fast as the i7.

 

[Atech]

amd may only be on par with c2q's but the i7 isnt a league of its own. the ph2's are in the same league, not for max performance but for gaming systems. the ph2 performs nearly as good as the i7's for most games simply becuase games dont support 8 threads but the i7 is still the best performace for all around the block

i understand what you were trying to get at but you should of read his post all the way through

Don't take my word:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1436330

 

[Chops]

You're really defensive when it comes to i7s aren't you? I'm pretty sure he never even implied that the Phenom II was as fast as the i7.

Oh, he is. Anytime the i7 is even mentioned he roars in at level 99 nerd rage.

 

[fsh42na]

Lol. Changing to Phenom from i7 power wise will save you at most pennies on your power bill. If that. Environmentally conscious. Hippes, all of them. There's actually caring for the environment and the greedy "Go Green" way about it, supported by lemmings.

Never said I was dropping my I7's for a P2 system. Just wanted to put together a budget AMD system for the shits. As far as going "green", I don't think it's such a bad idea for all of us to take a small step in that direction or you one of those who think the shrinking polar caps is an optical illusion?

 

[Simmonz]

The main thing AMD offers me are fan designs that don't make me suicidal. The S775 fans were horrible to install IMO. I hated the push pin design more than any design before it. Not to mention that the bulk of S775 aftermarket HSFs I see require the motherboard to be removed while only a small portion of AM2/AM2+ HSFs require that.

 

[AMDXP]

Never said I was dropping my I7's for a P2 system. Just wanted to put together a budget AMD system for the shits. As far as going "green", I don't think it's such a bad idea for all of us to take a small step in that direction or you one of those who think the shrinking polar caps is an optical illusion?

I'll add you to my whack job list. It has been one of the coldest summers my area has had. Global warming my ass, buddy.

You fall into Al Gore's money pool. I'm going to try to stay as far out of it as I can. Along with Socialized Medicine.

All for "Cleaner" ways to do things, but that's not going to happen until it's "really" time.

Tree-Huggers.

Oh, and the Polar ice-caps shrink and enlarge through cycles. If you had any real insight you would see those whom form these results are backed by political lobbyist. So, you and you global warming can GTFO. "Global Warming is a Crock of Shit!" - Bob Lutz

 

[edifyingkarma]

The main thing AMD offers me are fan designs that don't make me suicidal. The S775 fans were horrible to install IMO. I hated the push pin design more than any design before it. Not to mention that the bulk of S775 aftermarket HSFs I see require the motherboard to be removed while only a small portion of AM2/AM2+ HSFs require that.

Ugg, I hate push pins!

 

[stealthy123]

I'll add you to my whack job list. It has been one of the coldest summers my area has had. Global warming my ass, buddy.

You fall into Al Gore's money pool. I'm going to try to stay as far out of it as I can. Along with Socialized Medicine.

All for "Cleaner" ways to do things, but that's not going to happen until it's "really" time.

Tree-Huggers.

Oh, and the Polar ice-caps shrink and enlarge through cycles. If you had any real insight you would see those whom form these results are backed by political lobbyist. So, you and you global warming can GTFO. "Global Warming is a Crock of Shit!" - Bob Lutz

wow.

It's been the hottest summer of my lifetime where I am at.

when is it "really" time, when it may be too late?

saving energy also equates to saving some cash, it's remarkable to me that guys like you like to point fingers at others for being idiots, when you have blinders on.

You think your neighborhood is the only one in the world?

idiots ignore facts, there are facts on both side, you just don't want to see them.

 

[fsh42na]

wow.

It's been the hottest summer of my lifetime where I am at.

when is it "really" time, when it may be too late?

saving energy also equates to saving some cash, it's remarkable to me that guys like you like to point fingers at others for being idiots, when you have blinders on.

You think your neighborhood is the only one in the world?

idiots ignore facts, there are facts on both side, you just don't want to see them.

ditto

 

[fsh42na]

I'll add you to my whack job list. It has been one of the coldest summers my area has had. Global warming my ass, buddy.

You fall into Al Gore's money pool. I'm going to try to stay as far out of it as I can. Along with Socialized Medicine.

All for "Cleaner" ways to do things, but that's not going to happen until it's "really" time.

Tree-Huggers.

Oh, and the Polar ice-caps shrink and enlarge through cycles. If you had any real insight you would see those whom form these results are backed by political lobbyist. So, you and you global warming can GTFO. "Global Warming is a Crock of Shit!" - Bob Lutz

I'm the wack job? We have a simple difference of opinion and you tell me to "GTFO"?
If you don't have anything useful to add to my thread, then please refrain from posting here.

 

[oldpablo]

I replaced several of my home systems with a $100 Fry's combo of an x2 7750 and an AMD 760G motherboard with onboard dx10 video card. You just can't get better value than AMD in general.

 

[DTN107]

Average climate here in Charlotte, NC has gone up the past decade.

It use to snow a few times in the winter but now it rarely snows. Hell it is not surprising for it be 75 degrees or higher during February anymore.

Pretty much everyone here can feel the global warming. I haven't decided to believe it or not but I do believe humans do play a huge role on the environment.

How much rain forest have we clear cutted which of course is our world's most abundant source of oxygen.

-----------------

Back to the topic thread:

AMD has too much to offer to list out. The other choices are not meant for most people. Not everyone needs the extreme powerfully i7 nor a dead socket LGA 775.

 

[Mr34727]

550BEx2 + Gigabyte 770 board (<$200)

unbelievably high unlock success rate, plus its cheap. Throw in a 4890 and you have a mini dragon. Personally, I know the i7 is "better", but I just can't justify the cost. The combo described above is what, 400? You should be maxing out most games with a <22" lcd at mid resoultions.

Encoding, yeah, id love an i7, but i leave the queue up overnight anyway, so a few extra minutes wont kill me.

Cant comment on anything besides those...encoding and gaming ftw

 

[Ranari]

I stopped after reading that BS...fact is that AMD is still only par-on-par with C2Q...i7 is in it league of it's own, it might be that the Phenom2 has around the same die size as an i7...but the performance is not equal...at all!

Maybe if you had actually read what he said, you'd see the point he was getting at. Seriously, do you come from the WoW forums, son?

@ Global Warming:

I'm not convinced, but I don't say that to be belligerently disagreeable. History has shown us varying degrees of warming/cooling on the Earth that were completely unrelated to CO2 levels. The Earth was considerably warmer than it even is now back during the height of the Greeks, and yet CO2 levels were normal.

Secondly, I want proof, real proof, when it comes to political issues where there is money involved. If anyone can claim global warming is happening and receive funding from the government, what do you think people are going to say? Think about it. Al Gore laughed his way right to the bank.

Thirdly, global warming places its emphasis on Earth warming, and yet often disregards the true heat source of this planet; the Sun. While the Sun's energy output is relatively constant as a result of heliostasis, its behavior in the last 20 years can best be described as "odd". So the true question to ask yourselves is, are we warming the planet by all the toxins, gases, and chemicals we release into the air, or is global warming truly independent of our actions. We have *zero* control of the behavior of our father star.