Who Do You Trust? (Technically, That Is)

I began thinking about this while reading the observations of one article at a site that I frequently visit. The writer had come to the conclusion that there really was no need for anyone to use AMD processors these days, as Intel, according to him, had wrested each and every segment of the performance marketplace from the guys in green.

The claim got me thinking, not only because I am about to purchase an AMD processor, but because I also wondered how he could speak that way, without any real backing for his claims.

I began to look around, wondering what I’d find in the area of tech workups about processors, and how they might differ.

I first went to ZDNet, and the writings of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. He has written a few articles about this, and not long ago did a couple of articles about system builds. It seems he falls right in line with this notion, yet when I reflected upon his results, I don’t think anything strange is going on, but I’m not sure that the type of methodology used is going to assure repeatable results. I do tend to think that some affection for Intel products seeps into his assertions. Fair enough, small bias, but nothing that could be something to get worked up about.

Next, I went to PC Magazine, and its 11th toe, ExtremeTech.  After looking around, I got the idea that extreme here refers to both performance and price – these guys seem to have no budget limits on their builds, so of course, all the builds feature Intel processors.

When I looked at Ars Technica, I first found that the symptoms of the takeover are showing, apparently Conde Nast doesn’t like to put out dollars for any kind of hardware – the write-ups about hardware, that used to flow freely, are now replaced by things like $99 brand new (old stock ) Sega game consoles. Nothing to see here, onward.

Tom’s Hardware was the next stop, and it didn’t take any effort at all to find an evaluation of the newest flagship, the 955 BE. The multipage comparison shows many things – the AMD Phenom II performs better , much better, than any Intel fanboy would have you believe, and in gaming – something that is relied upon to distinguish processors on ZDNet frequently, the results are frequently too close to call between the Core i7 high priced spread and the budget AMD offerings. The synthetic benchmarks are dominated by the Intel  top of the line category, but at a cost differential of 4 to 1. This 4 to 1 cost garners the user a performance increase of between 10% and 20%, depending upon the test.  Naturally, Tom’s states that AMD offers a great alternative for those not born with a silver spoon in the mouth.

Last, a trip to AnandTech shows a front page article about the 955 BE, and after reading through its multiple pages, the proclamation is made that AMD solidly owns the mid-range, where most people today will be purchasing. Anand handles the review himself, and is harsh but fair. He states the good, the bad, and the ugly (see article) and ends his article with this -

Final Words

It has taken AMD more than long enough, but the company is finally in a situation where its processors are competitive in the performance mainstream market segment. The Phenom II X4 955, 945/940 and the Phenom II X3 720 are all very competitive at their price points. Compared to the Core 2 Quad Q9550 the new X4 955 generally comes out ahead.

From a longevity standpoint, the AM3 platform is much wiser to invest in than LGA-775. Intel has already shown all of its cards there, and there aren’t going to be any faster Core 2 Quads - just cheaper ones. By the end of this year Intel will begin transitioning to LGA-1156 and 775 will start fading away. By contrast, AMD’s Socket-AM3 is going to be the flagship for the company for all of 2009 and it’ll continue to live on into 2010. If you’re choosing between Socket-AM3 and LGA-775, AMD has made that choice very easy - Phenom II is the way to go if you’re concerned about a long term upgrade path, not to mention that the chips are generally cheaper than their Intel equivalents.

Where the situation gets tougher is when you look at the $245 Phenom II 955 vs. Intel’s $284 Core i7-920. The i7 route costs you another ~$40 on the CPU and another $10 - $70 on the motherboard depending on what AM3 board you get for the 955. For around $100 extra you can go with an i7-920, which is anywhere from 0 - 40% faster than the Phenom II X4 955 depending on what application you’re looking at. Now if you’re budget constrained then the i7 isn’t really an option, but as applications and workloads become more threaded the i7 could be a wiser long-term purchase.

The cheaper Phenom II parts, especially once you get down to the X3 720, don’t really even touch the i7’s price points so the comparison isn’t really valid there. But the 955 is getting dangerously close to the cost of an entry level i7 platform, and if you don’t already have an AM2+ motherboard the i7 may be worth considering. Especially now that DDR2 and DDR3 are much closer in price.

So, though Anand doesn’t gush about the AMD part, he certainly doesn’t dismiss it out of hand. In fact, other places on the site produce more sympathetic responses from Anand and the staff, which is far from dismissal.

What has been learned here? Perhaps the people who don’t do full testing should refrain from making rash statements about fitness for purpose. Also, sometimes, we all are swayed by money, and perhaps some of the authors who simply choose Intel at every price point have gotten some help with their decision.

In the end, if AMD was, in fact, so ill prepared for the market, it would have completely collapsed, and this whole discourse would have been impossible, due to its demise, making the entire thing irrelevant.

§

whitespace

whitespace

whitespace

whitespace

whitespace

whitespace

Share this post :