What makes Intel better than AMD?

[Jackofspades0]

Hi,

I'm just curious to find out why Intel CPUs seem so much more expensive than AMD CPUs. When I was still looking for advice when it comes to selecting PC components I read in a magazine that AMD gives you a lot more bang per buck than Intel. Since then I've been hooked up on AMD CPUs since my budget isn't high enough to buy Intel's best CPUs and the ones I can afford usually looks much slower than their AMD price equivalents. Example:

I can get (in South-Africa) an Intel Core i5 Quad Core CPU (3,4 GHz) for the same price as an AMD Eight Core 3,6 GHz. This doesn't make sense to me. Can anyone explain this to me? I mean an AMD Quad Core 3,6 GHz CPU is available for half the price of the Core i5.

 

[darth pravus]

More efficient IPC (instructions per clockcycle).

Basically they can do much more at 3.4Ghz than amd can do at the same.

AMD try to compensate by adding more cores but this only helps in highly threaded apps which definitely aren't games

 

[ss202sl]

^^^+1 Performance. Intel just outperforms AMD in most tasks.

 

[06yfz450ridr]

they also use less power and lower tpd. but hey im still going to use amd haha. intel needs the competiton if you can call it that


but hey gaming isnt about the processor any more, its the gpu that matters. you spend more on a processor i spend more on my gpu

 

[darth pravus]

Amd cannot match the i7 under any circumstances either if you want performance crown.

 

[antherion]

Having 8 cores doesn't necessarily mean that it's faster than 4 cores with a different architecture/"technology".
The price comparison of the i5 Quad Core and AMD Eight Core stays the same in the States and most other parts of the world as well.
The i5, despite of being a quad core, performs better in games, and roughly have similar CPU-intensive productivity performance as the eight-core AMD. Do know, though, that the power consumption of the i5 is much lower than the AMD FX.
So no, it's not that they are "much more" expensive—they mostly corresponds to a certain performance level.

 

[satyamdubey]

Benches!!...make Intel better than AMD. However for most general purpose home use applications and work, the "Experience/Feel of it all" makes neither better than the other.
you will notice considerable perfomance diff say when encoding a video on a top end i7 vs an 8350 with i7 outperforming the competition by a huge margin. but in gaming, a difference between 135 fps(i7) and 91 fps (8350) makes no difference to the gaming Experience.

some comparos: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/702?vs=697
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/443?vs=697

hope this helps
-satyam

 

[kiizerd]

They are both pretty good and yes AMD is better for the money but if its in your budget definitely get an intel they are just better I had an AMD 8150 and it was good but after a while I bought an intel i5 3570K and though I lost 4 cores and some overclocking capabilites I instantly saw a noticable increase in performance. Also the IGP (HD 4000) on the Ivy Bridge is pretty darn good for an IGP. So imo if you can afford it go for the ivy bridge

 

[jaguarskx]

A better architecture design that allows for higher IPC (instructions per clock) executions which means an overall faster / more powerful CPU without resorting to increasing the frequency to get excellent performance.

Intel's design also allows for a much more power efficient CPU. For example, I believe when a Core i5-3570k and FX-8350 are both running at stock speed with a 100% load, the FX-8350 consumes about 50w - 60w more than the Core i5.