Help! Intel vs AMD Tossup AGAIN

[thegamerguy1]

While this isn't the traditional Intel vs AMD deabte, I looked for some the best CPU's on the market from AMD and Intel. (I searched for them by gigahertz). I found the Intel Core 4790k, and the AMD FX 9590. Now while I know that normally Intel is better seemingly, I wanted to know a few things:
1. Apart from the gigahertz, what should I be looking for when trying to get a good CPU.
2. What are the pro's and con's normally for both companies (please write this in dummies language, for I am a dummy in this field)
3. Out of those two CPUs, which one is better and why? It's probs INtel, but is that because it has some kind of feature that makes it awesome?

Thanks

 

[Gam3r01]

1) Apart from speeds you should focus on core strength and architecture. Speeds mean very little if the CPU can only cycle minuscule amounts of work load per cycle.

2) AMD: Best budget option for the most part. Cheap processors that push fairly good multithreaded performance at a reasonable price point, not too good in single threaded applications (Gaming) or the power draw department.
Intel: Much higher single threaded performance, higher overall performance, less power consumption, but it comes at a premium.
Intel offers sheer performance for a cost, AMD is more budget friendly.

3) 4790k hands down, there is no competition. The FX can hardly compete with an i5 in almost all tasks, let alone the i7.

 

[cameron430]

When looking for a cpu, dont just look for the highest gigahertz and the most cores, which is a common mistake made by lots of people. Just because a cpu has a higher clocked gigahertz, doesnt make it better. For example my AMD FX-8350 (8 cores and 4.0ghz) is equivalent to an i5 (4 cores at 3.5ghz). Not only is a higher clock good, but also look at the amount of cache in it, cache is pretty much insanely fast ram for your cpu, so the more the better. Make sure it has L3 cache instead of L2, but many processors will have a mix of both. As for pros and cons of the two companies, Intel i7's have hyper threading, which doubles the amount of threads, and intel chips tend to have lower power consumption and lower heat output. AMD chips are cheaper and tend to have more cores with higher base clocks, but they use a lot of power and put out a lot of heat. Since Intel has hyper threading, it is better for video rendering/editing and Photoshop, as well as some games. AMD is a good budget gaming cpu, it gets the job done without any fancy addons. As for the two cpus that you compared, the 4790k will be the winner in almost every scenario, but it really depends on your budget and what you need out of your cpu.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Go Intel.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Go Intel.

Yes ^^ there is a lot to account for with processors, including cache, core frequency, and transistor amount (which Intel's have more I found out after researching). Frequency is only one thing, the amount of cycles, but the more transistors there are and cores, the mote data can be calculated each cycle.

 

[thegamerguy1]

OK Dokey, that was easy, and it seems that even after I researched, the i7's winning pretty much everything when it comes to benchmarks and features. Otherwise, I wanted to know what the best i7 is onthe market at the moment- is it the 4790k? thats what i thought...