AMD vs Intel?
 

Is one better than the other or does it not even really matter(just a matter of opinion)?

From reading reviews over the years, this is the short and narrow that I've concluded. (assuming their clock speeds are similar)

32bit AMD vs 32bit Intel
Intel is better at encoding/decoding multimedia.
AMD usually meets or beats Intel in all other categories
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64bit AMD vs 32bit Intel
AMD now matches Intels performance for encoding/decoding
AMD still exceeds in other categories
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64bit AMD vs 64bit Intel
Haven't seen the benchmarks

Just to interject my thoughts, 64bit is a waste of money currently.

AMD 64's are cheap and quick, so you are not wasting any money. At the moment AMD seem to be better value for maney, so all the new machines here are AMD. Before that it was all intel. Nothing special either way, tho I do like the cooler running of the AMD and the high performance from lower clock speeds (which is why they run nice and cool these days).

This will be my last post in this thread as I'm sure people will think I'm trying to rekindle the 64bit flame war.

I'll agree slightly. In a server environment 64bit processors aren't a waste, but most home users are buying them because they are a fad, not because they are more suited for their needs. There are legitimate uses for both home and server environments where an AMD64 wouldn't be a waste, but buying it soley because it is 64bit will likely turn out to give a user a 64bit processor running 100% 32bit code.

I don't get it, sorry. All the AMD main line is already 64 bit and cheap. It's now just the normal CPU, just as when 32 bit chips started. It will soon be hard to get a 32 bit chip.

The 64Bit AMD Opterons blow *everything* 64bit Intel away. We use Opterons at work for our new HP Servers (DL-360 G4) and they are amazingly fast.

I heartily endorse AMD chips. I've got an AthlonXP 2500+ and for my purposes its price/performance ratio is better than my P4. In any event, both Intel and AMD turn out excellent products, and whichever you choose, you can expect years of problem free operation

As for 64 vs 32, clearly in the future 64 will be king, but for now unless you have 64 bit apps, buying a 64 bit CPU probably isn't going to make a huge difference. For people who are still looking for Athlons, NewEgg still carries them

AMD works with all types of instruction architectures such as 16-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit very well. Intel works well with 32-bit code. Intel added wrap around code called EMT64 to make people think they have 64-bit processors. Intel is still in the 32-bit realm while AMD paving the way for 64-bit computing. Intel is ok but AMD is great. From the beginning AMD kept it simple to this day. IMHO, Intel likes to play tricks with their customers. Intel's best processor is Pentium M. I suggest using AMD for desktops and Intel for notebooks.

Intel likes trying new things that may not work while AMD uses tried and true ways that always works.

I heard,

Intel goes to dual core(or more parallel core),
AMD goes to 64bit processing.

Which are slightly different path.

I am fine with my p4, waiting ps3.

It does not matter.

less than 10% efficiency with one or the other.

For 64 bit, I suggest AMD simply because they invented it and Intel is trying to imitate it, reluctantly at best. Even better is the Nvidia Chipsets.

Never ever buy via chipsets ever again!

To tell you the truth if you are going to play games you need windows anyway. In reality the Video Card is more important than anything else. So figure out the video card and build something to put it on.

The chip with the most L2 cache always wins. I'd take an Intel dual core "extreme edition" over anything AMD (for my desktop anyway.)

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.../12/27/1725245
http://www.hothardware.com/viewartic...?articleid=758

From what I've seen of the intel EE chips, the performance gain is relatively quite a bit less than the extra cost tho...

As for 64 bit, it's hard to buy anything but a 64 bit AMD from the places I get chips, and they start at AU$100 or so... (like US$60)

I use AMD because they are cheap and seem to be better for power hungry tasks

I what cost and at what power consumption rating. Comparing two processors based on the chip that has larger cache does not always help. Pentium 4 are very, very inefficient, so they need a lot of memory bandwidth and tons of cache just to catch up. I have an 2 GHz Pentium 4 (Northwood core). I picked the chipset that has the highest memory bandwidth. At that time there were RAMBUS and single channel DDR. Dual channel DDR was just an engineer's dream.

It takes about double the power to cool off a processor producing +130 watts of heat.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...y/presler.html
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2658&p=1

Both xbitlabs and anandtech suggests AMD processors.

The article I linked to covers all that, if you were truly interested in learning more about Intel's chips. Bottom line is it takes an AMD 4800+ to compete with it at all and it only runs at 3.46Ghz. Makes you wonder a 4800+ what? Certainly isn't an Intel CPU.

64-bit for server apps like databases is great though, and AMD still has the price advantage there. So I'm inclinded to agree with the statement: "The 64Bit AMD Opterons blow *everything* 64bit Intel away." But high-end desktop chips I dunno... 32-bit might be better on the desktop actually and high-end AMD chips aren't exactly cheap anyway!