Amd or Intel?

When I bought my laptop I was hard pressed to choose between the two. I remember seeing as many comparisons as I could to try and make my final decision. I ended up going with the Amd because of cost to performance.
How about you, do you have a Amd or a Intel?

 

I have an Intel and all my past laptops & desktops have all been Intel, but I have always wondered this as well. There are huge supporters on both sides of the camp. I'm actually interested in seeing other people's opinion on this because I've never quite been able to figure out which is the better of the two.

 

There are some chipsets that work better with Intel hardware interfaces and virtualization than with AMD, although AMD can do everything Intel does (and some say better at times). They come pretty close on that, but the way they implement calls to hardware and the technology they use is different enough that it is sometimes reason to choose one over the other.

As an example, if you are doing any kind of DJ mixing and use external turntables like Serato, Numark, or others, you will find that some of them only support Intel for the drivers while one or two support AMD also, but have excluded a few features to do so. So for this, you may want to go with Intel exclusively.

With AMD, you will find that it runs a lot cooler compared to Intel CPUs of the same speed and rating, and can give you the same or better clock cycles you expect to have. This has made AMD more recently a choice than Intel when it comes to some gaming systems because it works faster with the GPU over the system bus (with both built-in and external cards), due to their own proprietary enhancements for this. This can carry over slightly to virtual machines too, especially if you are doing any kind of graphics or video editing in them. If you configure it correctly, you can get a little more of a speed boost on latency reduction for video hardware even with this. So if you need a cooler, equally fast system with special enhancements for some video or graphics, you may want to go with AMD exclusively for that.

One other reason you may want to use Intel is if you are emulating Apple Macintosh OS X over a PC. Apple natively uses Intel hardware ever since they stopped using Motorola many years ago, so you have a better chance and time of emulating OS X on bare metal than with AMD.

You can also emulate OS X and other intel-specific kernels over AMD, but it is done differently, and is slightly slower. You have to have CPU translation or recompile it to use AMD calls instead of Intel if there are any special chip-specific instructions a programmer decided to use for speed or performance enhancements that are not universal between both chipsets. Each one has them (and sometimes different ones for different processors) which alienate the other processor which does not, or the other company who does it differently.

Most processors are backwards-compatible, but not backwards-company compatible lol. You have to recompile or rewrite the speed and performance specific instructions to be universal, otherwise you are stuck using it on the system it was designed for unless you do something like full hardware emulation (which works, but is really slow).

 

@IBMPC8088 Excellent info, thank you very much!! Now I'm beginning to wonder if it's my CPU that is the culprit in overheating sometimes. I only notice it when gaming on either of my laptops which are both Intel CPUs but both have AMD Radeon graphics. I always thought it was my graphics card that was causing this but maybe it's a combination of both. I'm definitely going to consider an AMD for my next machine.

 

All our computers at home are intel but in the office we have some AMD. But my laptop that is issued by the office is intel. The tech in our department prefers intel because it is more stable and it is the standard in most big companies. But from what I know, they did some benchmarking for a comparison of the speed of intel and AMD and I guess intel was more accurate in its specs.

 

I prefer intel because I believe the computer goes faster with intel. I've tried amd and intel computers at the library and the intel always goes faster.

 

If it is a Laptop I would undoubtedly go for an intel. Their Thermals are good, their performance is good and they consume less power. I don't agree with the fact that intel is faster than AMD as they are entirely different in terms of the way they work. Intel gives importance to making each core stronger and AMD gives more cores with lesser CPU. Most Games don't use more than 2 or four cores so intel for Gaming. But if you are into multi-threaded processes like decoding, rendering and or video editing I would choose AMD as they perform better and are cheaper than intel.

 

If I were building a system, I would go for AMD. It does perform better on a lot of occasions than Intel. However, there is a lot more that you can do with Intel. Like @IBMPC8088 said, if you're emulating OS x, you'd be far better off with Intel. In any case, its always better to list your own requirements before spending a penny.

I have Intels on all of my systems btw.

 

Thank you @IBMPC8088, that was a very good comparison of the two chip sets. It really comes down to what you want to use them for. So I did the right choice, I have a AMD and mostly do graphic work.

 

I think I would only go for an AMD if I was on a tight budget as they're good for their price, but Intel has definitely a better variety of processor that have better quality than AMD's. AMD also has cheaper processors, more cores per processor, and better integrated graphics. APU/GPU dual graphics has gotten better and shows promise, but if you are going to have a video card anyway Intel is the way to go.

Also some people prefer AMD because they think they are a better company, and they'd rather lose a few fps in a game and support a company they like more (and have more money to spend elsewhere) than to buy an Intel CPU. Another bad thing about the AMDs is the energy costs; AMD is usually cheaper at a unit cost but do use more energy (AMD CPUs have a higher TDP than Intel). So if you want to save money up front (and don't care about energy usage costs over the long term) AMD's not a bad choice.

 

I have had both and over the years both have had their pluses and minuses. On AMD's side, of course you have the higher performance to cost ratio. AMD also tends to allow you to have more cores without having to pay $500+ just for the privilege. However, Intel does tend to be a tiny bit more reliable on standard desktop apps.

So I think really the choice is up to you, whether you will be having a system more for games and perhaps video rendering or for normal average tasks that you need greater stability.

 

Yeah, AMD does have a higher performance to cost ratio. It really depends on you and what you're looking for in a system. There are processors out there that are better than AMD and Intel if you want to do something industry specific. So, you just have to think what kind of performance you want from your system.

 

No, just no. Nobody in their right mind will go with a AMD processor @2016 unless you were living under a rock for all these years. The Bulldozer architecture of AMD is close to 4-5 years. They haven't invented a new architecture for ages. India has undergone many architecture changes over these years.
AMD doesn't even have a customer level processor that supports DDR4. I don't know how can you recommend AMD to any customer. If you want something cheap, the i3 are there for you.

 

That might be true but it still comes down to personal preference. The price per performance in the AMDs is still better then Intel. Just because it's got an older architecture doesn't make it bad. It really depends what you want to use the computer for.

 

If you're gaming, I don't think personal preference will be the issue. Looking at gaming benchmarks today, an old generation dual-core Intel i3 beats even high-end AMD processors in almost every game, and destroys them on a select few. Intel Core i3 gives you the best bang for the buck for your money. Intel is the king and is out of reach by AMD as of now. Again I'd like to reiterate that the above statements apply only if you're into gaming.

 

Like my above poster said, if it's for gaming, AMD is a no-no. Though, I think even if it's not for gaming then also you should go for intel. Intel i3 of the latest generation i.e skylake can be bought for about 120$. An i3 from 3-4 generations can beat AMD mainstream processors in single core performance and almost equal in multi core performance.
i3 should be your answer
Eg i3 4150 @99$ only

 

I prefer whichever one is going to be more cost effective and functional at the same time. While I would generally prefer whichever is highest quality, there is a limit to everything. This means that I'm usually just shopping for a deal as opposed to preferring a brand, so long as the functionality is there.

 

I have never used Amd, I only have experience with intel.I hear that Intel is the best processor for computers,therefore, never considered switching to another processor such as Amd. They say Amd is an old technology.

 

I was under the impression that Intel is better than AMD. All my laptops and desktop have Intel. I only use the computer as it, not doing any programing, or anything like that; so I am fine with Intel. But I found @IBMPC8088 comment very informative and is worth to remember.

 

Who is "they"? Different, not necessarily older. Depending on the specific chip model you are comparing there are advantages on both sides to be had. Brand loyalty or image doesn't have much to do with the reality of how well a product works or the quality in this case. Intel just has a good propaganda machine.