Originally Posted by abrinister

i3

Athlon 64 X2

Looking at these pages, I notice the key differences being die size and frequency. The i3 offers a larger frequency (depending on the one you buy) and it offers a 32nm die. The Athlon X2 offers a lower frequency (depending on the one you buy) and offers a (minimum) of a 65nm die. The larger the die size, the more power the processor consumes.

Die info

Also, speed info

Alex Brinister

Originally Posted by abrinister

Looking at these pages, I notice the key differences being die size and frequency. The i3 offers a larger frequency (depending on the one you buy) and it offers a 32nm die. The Athlon X2 offers a lower frequency (depending on the one you buy) and offers a (minimum) of a 65nm die. The larger the die size, the more power the processor consumes.

Originally Posted by abrinister

I notice the key differences being die size and frequency.

Originally Posted by salasi

If you had read the references that you quoted, you would have realised that the units were different. There is a reason for this; they aren't the same thing. 32 nm (or 65 nm, for that matter) are not the size of the die, they are the size (linear dimension, not area) of an individual transistor. It is not even a reliable indication of the size of a transistor, because of the difference between drawn feature size and effective channel length, which means that you cannot necessarily compare the 32 nm from one supplier with the dimension quoted by another.

It also isn't true that the larger the die size, the more power the processor consumes - if you turn down the clock speed, which generally you can do, the power goes down, but the die size stays the same.



You've decided that architecture and number of cores, or number of threads aren't significant; some of the time that won't be true. In particular the arch can be very significant.

@Mercury305


I don't follow your logic with Desktop = No i3 (whether the die size is the factor, which it isn't, or not), but regardless of that, with the same number of cores and the same clock speed an i3 will be faster than an Athlon X2. For most people, most of the time, a more useful measure is how much performance you can get for how much cash. If you already have a mobo that you are happy to keep, then the most economical total system cost is probably to restrict yourself to whatever is compatible with that existing mobo (unless there is nothing suitable). But, in that case, the Intel versus AMD comparison is irrelevant, because the mobo won't be compatible with both.

If buying a new mobo is possibly a good solution, you could buy anything, and in that case an Athlon X2 probably wouldn't be anyone's first choice (either the last of the Phenoms, probably with a higher core count, or a Bulldozer; for some people the FM1 series with integrated graphics might also be an option, but that seems like a dead end right now with the Trinity/Piledriver/FM2 parts coming along in a couple months, and, presumably, when that happens, the FM1 series will see no further development).

That said, I'd probably be taking my money to Intel, in spite of the higher costs (on average) of mobos, these days Intel's low end parts do a cracking job, and it is difficult to argue for AMD, unless you have some kind of principled objection to giving Intel any money. AMD does need some successful new parts, and soon.

Originally Posted by abrinister

My ignorance does tend to cloud my ability to answer knowledgeably. Thank you for correcting me.



That is a good point. I did ignore thread count (which is 4 on the i3) and number of cores and the architecture. However, I do not think that mentioning the architecture or the number of cores makes a difference in this case because both processors are 64-bit and both are dual-core.

Alex Brinister