What to choose: AMD or INTEL ??

[jaguardriver]

For years, I have used Intel processors in all my computers.

I am about to buy a new computer (in parts) and am wondering which brand processor I should choose. Intel P4 would be my first choice, but AMD also caught my eye....

What to do? Does anybody have any good suggestions??
Is AMD better than Intel P4???

[Anigel]

Ive always used AMD chips in my servers.

Recently I have been gifted some boxes that had intel chips and I have had much less trouble and much better performance from the AMD chips than I have from the intel ones.

Intel v AMD has nearly always been more a matter of personal choice with many people falling firmly on one side or the other and relatively few people not having a preference.

[techieMoe]

In my experience it depends on what you want to do. In the past I've used both Intels and AMDs, and here's some comparisons. I won't make any judgment, just offer what I've noticed:

AMD chips run a lot hotter than Intels

Intel chips usually have higher clock speeds and bus speeds, however AMD processors often out-perform Intel chips despite a lower speed (for instance, my AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (1.8gHz) outperformed my P4 3.2gHz). This was while the CPUs were being used for gaming.

AMD chips are generally cheaper

From what I gather, Intel's business philosophy is to make the bleeding-edge fastest processors, while AMDs is to offer the most stable (though not necessarily fastest) processors.

Again, these are just what I've found in my experience, having built a dozen or so personal PCs and a couple of servers. My box now is an Intel box, and I've had no problems at all. Thanks to the commoditization of computer hardware these days, you'll probably not be disappointed either way, as long as you stick to the mid to high-end processors and not the budget range (Duron and Sempron for AMD, Celeron for Intel).

[swarooponmoon]

I would go for AMD....

[Skythra]

Okay depends what you are doing.

If you spend all day using just programs intel has been more often then not for plain processing power, rendering power for Mp3 creation etc... all the brute force of cpu stuff...

But amd is usually much better value for games and most gamers go for AMD. In comparrison the amd chips are often far less expensive for similar peformance speeds in games.

So up to you.. what are you looking for?

[Opnosforatou]

I allways use Intel chips, the only reason for me to switch to AMD is for the Optereon processor.
I've seen way to many systems with AMD processors that choke up, crash 'n burn.

[Skythra]

Well.. again it depends what you use it on, but amd makes its chips almost exclusively for overclocking/gaming side of the computer users whereas pentium tries for the home office user and the corperations.

Ive never in my experiance had a amd choke up on me as such... if you mean get chunky when processing?

However i know for the price of a 2.8 i could almost buy two 2600+'s and they have rather similar processing in games.. I mean in adobe premiere where im rendering a pure Digital video recording to mpeg, my 2600 aint gonna hold for long against the pure grunt of a 2.8ghz processing power.

anyhow a good site to see comparisons is www.tomshardware.com they review everything against everything in benchmarking style, so its pretty quick to see where what does what.

[tylerwylie]

It's all preference. That being said, I tend to prefer intel chips, I've used one amd chip and it just didn't feel right to me, probably because I've always been an intel guy. The new 64 bit amd's have caught my eye and my next computer will either have one of those or an intel pentium4 with hyper-threading.

[Stormblazer]

I used Intel untill I discovered AMD, and now I always use AMD
My 1.7Ghz AMD Athlon has repeatedly outperformed many faster
(Intel) systems that I have used. AMDs are also much more stable
than Intel.
For pure office workstations where the price doesn't matter, Intel
is better. For most other uses, especially desktop systems and
gaming, AMD is better.

I was also wondering something about the AMD-64 chips...
Does 64-bit refer to 64-bit registers (in the CPU)?

[Giro]

AMD chips run a lot hotter than Intels

Old news as you say below AMD run at a lower clockrate and still get the same work done there fore are cooler. K6 was the last CPU to have these problems.

AMD chips are generally cheaper

Agree and they are just as good.

From what I gather, Intel's business philosophy is to make the bleeding-edge fastest processors, while AMDs is to offer the most stable (though not necessarily fastest) processors.

No as you have said they have untill recently followed differnt goals Intel went the usual route and kept pumping up the Hz while AMD did other optimizations they both get jobs done as fast just Intel runs at a higher Hz.

Again, these are just what I've found in my experience, having built a dozen or so personal PCs and a couple of servers. My box now is an Intel box, and I've had no problems at all. Thanks to the commoditization of computer hardware these days, you'll probably not be disappointed either way, as long as you stick to the mid to high-end processors and not the budget range (Duron and Sempron for AMD, Celeron for Intel).

Whats wrong with a Sempron they are replacing the AthlonXP's which where good chips, I have a Sempron 2300+ on my server and it runs just fine. What CPU intesive stuff do most people do that need a 4Ghz chip?