AMD Vs. Intel

[Andreas.96]

I know this arguement is ancient and I also realise that if you have an unlimited budget Intel is better. However I was wondering if AMD might be better for me.

I am looking to buy a gaming PC around 1200 pounds, I have had a look at the Intel range and decided that if I went with Intel I would go with the I5 'k' version. But then it struck me that an AMD CPU might be just as good for gaming and cost less.

So my question is:

- Is it worth getting an AMD CPU for gaming in my budget and if yes which one?

Thanks in advance for any advice and help.
Andreas

P.S Motherboard help would also be highly appreciated

 

[keynes]

I know this arguement is ancient

yep, quite a lot of past threads on that.

I am looking to buy a gaming PC around 1200 pounds

For that budget I'd consider an intel cpu, a few games are more processor bound and the i5 will give you better performance on those compare to the amd equivalent. For motherboards depends on whether you are planning to sli/crossfire but any motherboard in the configurator should provide similar performance gaming wise.

 

[nathanjrb]

An AMD processor will probably be cheaper, yes, and the difference for gaming would probably be little to non at all as most games aren't CPU intensive.

Of course (after reading what Keynes put above) I'm quite new to this so I would take his advice over mine

 

[mantadog]

£1200 is not too shabby for a gaming rig, I too would be looking at an intel build on that budget. Intel is winning the battle at the moment, no question about it if your just looking at pure performance. The current offerings from AMD are just about acceptable if your on a really tight budget but would limit your upgradeability later should you choose to drop in a higher performance GPU or run a multi GPU setup.

From what I can see you gain nothing in gaming performance from the fx-4300 to the fx-8350, even beaten by an i3 in some tests... Yet the intel chips seem to have a decent progression as you go from i3 to i7.

 

[Frank100]

Hi,

I would echo the above comments. AMD for a tight budget and Intel for everything else. I think the AMD Opteron processors are good. I have 4 servers with dual Opteron 6272 chips and they are superb but I would favour Intel over AMD in the home processor market by some margin.

Intel know they are ahead and have set their sights on the small processor market and will seek to take on ARM. That might give AMD a way back in but they've got work to do.

 

[Tom DWC]

The only real leverage AMD have over Intel at the moment is their (very good) APU range. The onboard graphics chips are far superior to Intel HD for media use/light gaming, and good value.

Apart from that the Intel's are so far ahead at times except for the odd program that can take advantage of 8 threads (which is the exception, not the norm) where again AMD offer much better value than Intel's ludicrously overpriced 8 core chips. On the whole though they get hammered by a considerable margin and there are still enough processor bound games out there to cause problems for a top end gaming rig with an AMD CPU under the hood.

For low to mid budget rigs though, Intel processors are too pricey to justify the difference.

Afterthought... I really want to see AMD make up the difference and put some pressure on Intel. There's nothing worse than a lack of competition and Intel's last few releases have been pretty underwhelming to say the least. But not likely to happen any time soon.

 

[Andreas.96]

Thank you all for your responses, I think the best route for me will definitely be Intel so thank you for making up my mind

Andreas