What is best core i5 or A9

Status
Not open for further replies.
Solution
If you are talking about a laptop, then forget about AMD's A9 APUs. Most of the models are no better than a 4th generation Core i3 CPU. The higher end A9 APU models could be as good a a 4th gen Core i5 CPU.

Intel's most recent CPUs are 7th and 8th generation. 8th gen Core i5 and Core i7 are "low power" quad core CPUs; "u" model CPUs. They can peak as high as 4.0GHz depending on the model, but because they are low power 15w CPUs (as opposed to normal 45w quad core CPUs) most of the time the CPUs will not reach anywhere near the max clockspeed.

8th gen quad core i5 and i7 "u" model CPUs are still more powerful than dual core "u" model 7th gen (and earlier) CPUs.
Desktop or laptop?

It depends on the USAGE too. Also, if it's a laptop many vendors put in a single stick of 2400MHz which severely bottlenecks both the CPU and GPU so you don't get the performance you'd expect.

Roughly speaking an APU (CPU + GPU) starts getting throttled below 2x3200MHz so obviously 1x2400MHz is bad (I'm oversimplifying). How much varies by the application.

If laptop an APU might make sense if you want light gaming, the DDR4 bandwidth is sufficient, and the GPU is better than one in a comparably priced Intel-only build.

For DESKTOP I'd never get an APU likely as usually a CPU + Graphics Card makes far more sense. Remember the GPU in the APU not only needs high bandwidth to DDR4 memory but it also USES some of it.

So if you got say 2x4GB 3200MHz and use 2GB for VRAM you now have 6GB for system memory. Better to maybe get an i3-8100 Intel CPU and 2x4GB 2400MHz plus GTX???? or whatever the budget dictates.
 
If you are talking about a laptop, then forget about AMD's A9 APUs. Most of the models are no better than a 4th generation Core i3 CPU. The higher end A9 APU models could be as good a a 4th gen Core i5 CPU.

Intel's most recent CPUs are 7th and 8th generation. 8th gen Core i5 and Core i7 are "low power" quad core CPUs; "u" model CPUs. They can peak as high as 4.0GHz depending on the model, but because they are low power 15w CPUs (as opposed to normal 45w quad core CPUs) most of the time the CPUs will not reach anywhere near the max clockspeed.

8th gen quad core i5 and i7 "u" model CPUs are still more powerful than dual core "u" model 7th gen (and earlier) CPUs.
 
Solution
regarding i3/i5/i7

Be careful with throwing those terms around as there are 4-core i3's now, and in fact there are 2-core i7's in the laptop world so it's best to Google the EXACT model.

2C/4T means dual-core with hyperthreading. A laptop with a modern Intel CPU is usually pretty good even with "only" a 2C/4T CPU though the Pentium/Celeron models are relatively crappy (though fine for lower-end budget laptops)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.