[Debate] Intel vs AMD

[Simon]

This just makes no sense. It is 100% the purchasers fault. They need to research what they're buying. Some people don't need more than onboard graphics, that's why intel makes it.

+1

Agreed though, people need to learn about what their purchasing BEFORE they do it. People often just say "Ok, this pc looks good, ill buy it"

 

[mad pistol]

+1

Agreed though, people need to learn about what their purchasing BEFORE they do it. People often just say "Ok, this pc looks good, ill buy it"

Coming from someone that worked computer sales for 2 years, most people don't actually KNOW what they need a PC for. I mean, we ask them what they plan to do with it, but the PC landscape is always changing, and fads come and go. What someone may get for Facebook may turn into a spree to change all of their old VHS tapes to DVD. Or perhaps they have grandchildren that enjoy playing games, but their computer has an intel integrated graphics chipset on the mainboard. Either way, extra hardware needed for stuff like that is usually sold at a premium, and most people that buy prebuilt computers want to get the cheapest, most powerful system they can find. They don't usually "Research" what they're going to need before going into a store. They usually rely on the salesman to steer them in the direction of the cheapest computer they can possibly get away with buying. Of course, there are exceptions to that rule.


Also, bear in mind that the AMD Phenom II X4 965 (125 watt) processor offers gaming performance comparable to the i7 920 for about $200-$300 less once the platform (motherboard, RAM, and CPU) is thrown into consideration. That's a massive value add for anyone on a budget. Also, the PII 965BE (125w) is now $180 on newegg.com, which puts it at over $100 less than an i7 920. That's a pretty incredible value for such a powerful Quad Core processor.


AMD gets my vote for their value in the market. Without AMD, we would be paying extraordinary amounts of money for normal PC's powered by Intel CPU's and video chipsets.

 

[shadows5631]

+1

Forgot to mention price/perf for AMD is a huge win for me.

Also to mention, for $90 you could most likely have an AMD Phenom II x4 clocked at 3.1 or beyond. Easily comparable to the $290 i7.

Phenom II with 4GB's DDR3 and AM3 motherboard could still cost less than a single i7.

But, for the non budget folks, Intel is win.

 

[Two Listen]

This just makes no sense. It is 100% the purchasers fault. They need to research what they're buying. Some people don't need more than onboard graphics, that's why intel makes it.

It makes perfect sense, because Intel is putting out incredibly crappy onboard chipsets and have equally crappy support for said chipsets. They don't even run in OpenGL hardly worth a damn, and their drivers more often than not don't fix the problems, you can be sure of that.

I said it was mostly the fault of the consumer, but the other portion of the blame easily goes to Intel. Why? Because Intel chipsets make up maybe 40% of our customers PCs, but almost 80% of our problems. You can bet the people who went AMD aren't having any issues.

AMD makes wonderful processors at reasonable prices, AND they're not pissing me off every day at work. Not to mention, who in the hell doesn't list their drivers in a reasonable place? You head to Intel.com. Where are there drivers? Under the "Work" section, in "Support and Downloads".

Almost every other manufacturer I know has it very simply listed "Drivers" or "Support and Drivers" or "Driver Updates". But no, we're going to toss it under "Work", even though it's perfectly reasonable for many home users to need them, and we're just going to call it "Support and Downloads".

Again, this is something that for people who actually understand computers aren't going to get messed up on. And half of the people I deal with as a tech support employee call CDs and DVDs "tapes".

But if I have to choose between the company that can make decent processors but also makes my life difficult by unnecessarily confusing your average citizen with their crap, or the company that makes decent processors for cheaper and doesn't piss me off.

...well, that's a no-brainer.

Intel can make some great stuff. But I'm not discussing JUST the processors. I'm discussing the companies as a whole. Price per performance, and business practice included.

 

[PewPewBangBang]

It makes perfect sense, because Intel is putting out incredibly crappy onboard chipsets and have equally crappy support for said chipsets. They don't even run in OpenGL hardly worth a damn, and their drivers more often than not don't fix the problems, you can be sure of that.

I said it was mostly the fault of the consumer, but the other portion of the blame easily goes to Intel. Why? Because Intel chipsets make up maybe 40% of our customers PCs, but almost 80% of our problems. You can bet the people who went AMD aren't having any issues.

AMD makes wonderful processors at reasonable prices, AND they're not pissing me off every day at work. Not to mention, who in the hell doesn't list their drivers in a reasonable place? You head to Intel.com. Where are there drivers? Under the "Work" section, in "Support and Downloads".

Almost every other manufacturer I know has it very simply listed "Drivers" or "Support and Drivers" or "Driver Updates". But no, we're going to toss it under "Work", even though it's perfectly reasonable for many home users to need them, and we're just going to call it "Support and Downloads".

Again, this is something that for people who actually understand computers aren't going to get messed up on. And half of the people I deal with as a tech support employee call CDs and DVDs "tapes".

But if I have to choose between the company that can make decent processors but also makes my life difficult by unnecessarily confusing your average citizen with their crap, or the company that makes decent processors for cheaper and doesn't piss me off.

...well, that's a no-brainer.

Intel can make some great stuff. But I'm not discussing JUST the processors. I'm discussing the companies as a whole. Price per performance, and business practice included.

Thats still the purchasers fault..........everyone knows onboard graphics are crap and they won't perform the same as a dedicated one. If they cared so much then they should just buy a system with a dedicated graphics card like a GTX 260M or something.....but they honestly don't care/know if they are even purchasing a system with graphics that crappy. The decent/good intel mobile processors usually aren't coupled with a crappy onboard graphics card.

If they really knew about price/performance they would get this Asus laptop:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...220704&cm_re=asus_5870-_-34-220-704-_-Product

This thing sold out in days i believe........it was only released like a week ago and when i checked the day it came out it was in stock for $1,400.....now its bumped up to $1,600 which is retail.

 

[Bravo Company]

Thats still the purchasers fault..........everyone knows onboard graphics are crap and they won't perform the same as a dedicated one. If they cared so much then they should just buy a system with a dedicated graphics card like a GTX 260M or something.....but they honestly don't care/know if they are even purchasing a system with graphics that crappy. The decent/good intel mobile processors usually aren't coupled with a crappy onboard graphics card.

If they really knew about price/performance they would get this Asus laptop:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...220704&cm_re=asus_5870-_-34-220-704-_-Product

This thing sold out in days i believe........it was only released like a week ago and when i checked the day it came out it was in stock for $1,400.....now its bumped up to $1,600 which is retail.

The thing is, people (not persons) don't do any research on a computer before they buy it, half of them probably don't even know what a CPU/Graphics card is. So therefor they go out buying a computer for $600, go home, and try to do anything graphical with it and crap out. Therefor they call Mad Pistol and start complaining to him.

 

[shadows5631]

The thing is, people (not persons) don't do any research on a computer before they buy it, half of them probably don't even know what a CPU/Graphics card is. So therefor they go out buying a computer for $600, go home, and try to do anything graphical with it and crap out. Therefor they call Mad Pistol and start complaining to him.

Which is why I say the AMD chipset is better, imo.

A common one as of late that sells with fully built PC's (Gateway, HP) is the 780G chipset. It has onboard ATI 3200 graphics which is plenty enough for the casual gamer, or mainstream users, even runs COD4 pretty well. So, none of the huss and fuss with Intel graphics.


But still to this day Intel outsells ATI and Nvidia in the GPU department.

 

[FreakingHell]

What, you expect Intel to make a onboard chipset that performs like a 5870? Sorry to break it to you, but it's not like intel is just like "hey, let's make a horrible product." They can't jsut say, hey, let's embed a massive GPU die in our chipset! If someone wants to game, they should learn what they need to get. End of story.

 

[Simon]

Wow were getting some crazy replies.



I think that, for the consumer, AMD would be the proper way to go. But if you want the best performance and have some extra money, I think intel will deliver

 

[shadows5631]

What, you expect Intel to make a onboard chipset that performs like a 5870? Sorry to break it to you, but it's not like intel is just like "hey, let's make a horrible product." They can't jsut say, hey, let's embed a massive GPU die in our chipset! If someone wants to game, they should learn what they need to get. End of story.

But, for someone that has already bought an Intel system and wants to try PC gaming, they would want to try it first before investing all kinds of money into a powerful GPU. But, with Intel graphics, you wouldn't have much of an option. With AMD you would at least have a glimpse of what to expect with some eye candy to add.

 

[FreakingHell]

AMD on-board is not THAT much better than Intel on-board (especially the new Intel on chip GPU's for i3's). You can not blame Intel for a user changing what they want to do with their PC. Said purchaser should have considered what they might want to do with their PC in the future. It's not Intel's fault that some people are ignorant.

But I agree with all of you on AMD is best for price/performance.

 

[Simon]

But, for someone that has already bought an Intel system and wants to try PC gaming, they would want to try it first before investing all kinds of money into a powerful GPU. But, with Intel graphics, you wouldn't have much of an option. With AMD you would at least have a glimpse of what to expect with some eye candy to add.

Well I know you can do casual gaming. I tried it on the following:

16" Dell laptop
1.7ghz intel core 2 duo
256mb intel integrated graphics
1.5GB RAM

I was able to run CSS and portal on it with decent results. No lagg on portal. CSS ran just fine too

 

[Bravo Company]

From what I understand is, he is saying with an AMD build you can afford a pretty decent CPU and get a pretty decent GPU for the same, or almost the same, cost of just an Intel CPU alone.

 

[JunK]

ok BTW it isn't intels decision to make a total rig with onboard graphics, its the computer manufacturer like Acer or HP or emachines or something. they are the ones that build the computer with onboard graphics not intel.

but thats exactly what they do, they piece together these massive awesome rigs for like 1500 bucks but it doesn't even include a graphics card. this is primarily the main reason why building your own rig is so much better because hey, you can put a graphics card in instead of 9000 GB of ram which you'll never use for an added 500 bucks.
they do the same thing with AMD rigs

 

[Simon]

I just looked at a FutureShop flyer in the paper, and 95% of pc's they listed in there are intel. Is intel simply overrated?

 

[shadows5631]

AMD on-board is not THAT much better than Intel on-board (especially the new Intel on chip GPU's for i3's). You can not blame Intel for a user changing what they want to do with their PC. Said purchaser should have considered what they might want to do with their PC in the future. It's not Intel's fault that some people are ignorant.

But I agree with all of you on AMD is best for price/performance.

Well I mean having the option to run a couple of low demanding games. I was amazed when my brother played COD4 with the AMD onboard, because my G35 chip could barely handle Halo 1.

 

[Simon]

Well I mean having the option to run a couple of low demanding games. I was amazed when my brother played COD4 with the AMD onboard, because my G35 chip could barely handle Halo 1.

My old 32mb nvidia card can run halo nicely

 

[Two Listen]

I'm not saying Intel should be putting massive GPUs out there with every PC.

But just anything that doesn't, you know, completely and utterly blow. The games our customers call in about are NOT graphically intensive. They're less intensive than the 1st Halo, hell, they're less intensive than Half-Life (the original) or the original Starcraft. The games I'm talking about just BARELY require DirectX 9 compatability. And can run an alternative Open GL mode. For display 90% flat textures. Not even 3D models.

But those onboard Intel chipsets that come with 90% of PCs you find sitting on the shelf in wal-mart just can't do it. They're that bad. They can't do anything more, quite literally, than surf the web a good majority of the time.

That's bad. And yes, it's the computer manufacturer's decision. But why then, I wonder, do AMD machines not tend to have these issues?

Yeah people look at Intel and think quality when they're gamers. Because as gamers they build their own machines and can pay somewhat top dollar for a solid processor. But the average consumer can't, and doesn't know a router from a DVD drive. But when you shell out $800 for a PC, you should be able to expect some semblance of at least halfway supporting something as old as very, VERY basic DirectX.

Intel's got the market pretty covered. AMD is certainly the underdog whenever you're looking around in local stores, by a lot. But as a result, Intel just doesn't seem to try as hard. Go figure.

And in the end, it ties directly into performance for price. Whether you're a gamer or an idiot consumer, might as well go AMD and be safe with your money.

 

[Krumlov]

From my research (and my newly built PC) I find that both AMD and Intel chips aren't too different. Both build chips and categorize them based on speed.

The thing that I base my purchases on is the motherboard. The motherboard is one of the most important things in your computer if not the most important.... behind CPU haha.

The boards I tend to like are AMD boards, I find they are higher quality and out preforming than the Intel competition.

Another thing I look at is how many Intel parts I have to replace compared to AMD parts. AMD has served me well, but my only Intel CPU was trash.

AMD ALL THE WAY BABY!! :glare:

 

[FreakingHell]

I still fail to realize how intel creating a product (on-board graphics) MEANT for people who want to browse the web or as intensive stuff as HD video. That's what intel made it for, not for gaming. It's manufacturers fault for putting in on everything and advertising that it can do this and that, not intels. It does exactly what intel designed it to do, nothing more, nothing less.

Some people don't want to do anything intensive. That is who onboard graphics are for. It is perfect for people who just want to browse the web as it uses almost no power in comparison to beefier GPU's.