The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

To counter, play the other-side, quite often the majority is wrong, too often. However not this time. LOL

 

hmm that's true aswell.

 

sammorris wrote:

Sam,

The 4 tests they used have been well known for a long time to favor Intel. Two games don't tell very much about game playing capabilities either. Let's be honest here and face it, it was a p*ss poor review from any viewpoint.

The review I posted from TomsHardware was far more comprehensive and informative, while at the same time showcasing both the good and the bad, as well as explaining why the differences. A far broader variety of tests in games, software and synthetic benchmarks too.

I saw a CPU test recently of several games running on the $314 Intel i7-2600k with the Intel HD Graphics 3000, compared to the $139 Llano A8-3850 2.9GHz with Ati 6550D HD Graphics. The less expensive Llano kicks Intel's butt, gaming. The Llano's graphics were more detailed and much smoother. The Sandy Bridge's graphice showed less detail, and were very choppy. One guy even commented that it was an unfair test, and that the Intel should have been allowed to put in a comparable video card to make it a fairer test? LOL!! I guess he doesn't understand that the GPU is part of the CPU on both processors.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I'm not saying it makes Intel instantly less desirable, but the Llanos should be very tempting for OEMs selling cheap PCs with integrated graphics, which make up by far the majority of the market.

 

Sam,

Even though Russ has made some very good arguments I think there is some truth to the validity of the 970-990 Intel's being worth the extra expense so even though I've hacked on you some, I also think your point on the new i7's is correct and it isn't fair for us to gang up on you due to the fact that you are not totally off base.

Stevo

 

The way I saw it AMD always had good value...

 

I wouldn't spend the money without the need, but I would buy the new i7 first! I think it's a better CPU! I was looking over the reviews on newegg for the 17-970. Lots' of liars over there there! My personal favorite is: "Stock heatsink keeps this baby at 18C-20C when idling, 28C-31C at full load, and it is quiet!" You know what BS is? LOL!! That would be fabulous cooling if it were true. So why is this guy buying a Cooler Master V6? I hope he isn't expecting an improvement! ROFLMAO!!

Russ

 

Cables eh? Well...I might believe that, if my Wii weren't having trouble with the dock too. But the Wii can be finicky about the USB drives. As well as SD cards. I'll definitely be fiddling with it over the next week. Still got some kinks to work out
Unfortunately, I don't recall where I got that damned eSATA cable. Strong possibility it came with the dock I suppose. Seems like I have another one that came from somewhere though. I'll have to dig through all my cables.

31C under full load? I find that hard to believe. Even with genuine water cooling, that'd be a great accomplishment. Russ, that reviewer must have been smoking some serious stuff LOL!

Definitely agree about AMD's value. They've always been the sweet spot for my pay grade. If I had more money, I'd probably buy an intel system too. I love to run comparisons.

 

I don't know about the temps you quoted Russ, but remember what cooler the i7 980X and 990X ship with (not the 970) - it may be the most hideously noisy cooler in existance, but it's very powerful as stock coolers go, probably better even than the Arctic Freezer coolers.
Ultimately though, you're right, I would almost never advocate the i7 970/980X/990X over an i7 2600K or i5 2500K because of the latter's innate speed and overclocking potential, and that's for the exact same reason I'd recommend the 2500/2600 over a Phenom II X6. 4 faster cores, in the majority of cases, are better than 6 slower ones.
As far as value is concerned, AMD don't sell anything that's overpriced, because they can't. Nothing AMD can produce (until Bulldozer comes out at least) is worth charging much for, hence there's nothing they make that's expensive. Since Intel have an absolute performance lead, they can and do charge whatever they like for their top performers, because people who want the best, will pay it.
In the midrange though, I don't necessarily think AMD offer substantially more value than Intel. For its price, the i5 2500K is a ridiculously powerful CPU. It holds true with the new i3s and i5 duals too, they're very powerful for what they are.

I'm not going to concede about the bit-tech review. I think it's a perfectly fair test. Since THG are well known to live off company bribes, I really do have to hold anything they post in question.
If you want a more comprehensive test that I do trust, how about
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20188/12

I'm seeing similar trends here tbh

 

Sam,

You can say what you want, but you aren't seeing 18C for an idle temp unless you have some kind of chilled liquid cooling. That is about 65F, which means you would have to have the room a few degrees cooler, say about 63F. That is one damn chilly room!

As far as buying an Intel i5-2500k rig vs an AMD 1090T one. For me the cost difference would be $70. How much am I paying for useless graphics, that are seriously inferior to the Llano A8-3850 with HD 6550D graphics. To build using the standard I have now, it would cost me $420.21 for the MB, Memory and CPU. My current build would cost about $70 less. Would it be worth it for me to build the i5-2500k? To gain a few seconds on an encode, maybe, maybe not? Since by the review you posted shows the AMD's do quite well at encoding, probably not! Generally all that much touted speed is useless to me. If I was a high end gamer, it would be worth it, but I would still gripe about the wasted graphics. I don't like paying for something I can't use. Yes, the stock cooler is powerfull. At 7000 rpm, it should be. It's also the loudest cooler I've ever heard!

As I said a week or so ago, AMD are the only CPUs selling in significant numbers in the US at the moment. Maybe people in the UK can afford Intel's prices, but not many of us in the US can!

Do you bleed Intel blue? LOL!! Both of those reviews were very poor in their own ways. Bit-Tech ran so few tests, it became a meaningless review. They deliberately left out tests they would normally have performed that show the AMD in a much better light if the review had been for the AMD, and that isn't honest! They tested on two games. TWO! What is anybody going to learn from that? Techreport is nothing but a bunch of Intel Fanboys, that rag on AMD every chance they get with their little wise cracks. At least they were better than Bit-Tech, because they had a better variety of games and other tests than Bit-Tech. I've also heard that about Toms, but for all the years I've been reading their reviews, I've questioned very few of them. I'm sure that manufacturers test their stuff before they send it to Toms, and maybe even "Bin" out their best ones and send them for testing. I personally think that Toms should make a deal with a company like Newegg, where they give Newegg advertising space in exchange for retail components to use for testing. What better way to test than to do the reviews without having to answer to anyone. Newegg isn't going to take sides. Not only that, Toms would get shipped the same exact thing that Newegg's customers buys, to use for testing. It would certainly level the playing field!

I look at it this way! In the US, all of the annual sales in 2011 were a bust. The only major sale left on the calender is the Christmas Holiday sales. If this turns out to be a bust too, the Country won't be far behind, and that's going to impact economy's all over the world if that happens!

Russ

 

No, I agreed that the temps were wrong, but the fact that any test except from the one or two that show AMD in a positive light is flawed? Not buying it, sorry. If the majority of trusted sites have the same opinion, and one or two (especially sites that have been under intense scrutiny for false reports in the past) have the opposite opinion, I'm siding with the majority. Trusting the wealth of well-respected sites out there over one that repeatedly gets panned for bribery does not make me an Intel fan, and you know that.
The world may be going bust, but Intel's profits are up, year on year. Things can't be going too bad for them. The same is also true of AMD by the way.

 

Russ what wrong with the games?

crisis is still regarded as one of the most intense games to run, very CPU intensive,

 

Shaff,

Two games total, don't tell you a lot about how well a computer plays games. There were 8 games in the THW review I posted.

Russ

 

but they are very intense, and crysis was a big game mainsteam wise. though i agree they should have mainstays like cod or bf aswell.

 

Techreport posted a lot more than two games. Don't tell me, they're all Intel-biased?

 

i like the tech report, very well done reviews whenever i check one, and good podcast aswell.

 

If a lot of software/games utilize an intel instruction set, that AMD does not support, perhaps there is some bias? I'm asking, I have no idea :S

 

If that were true, AMD CPUs would be bad for games in general, which they're not, so I doubt that's the case.

 

I guess what I mean is, if intel has an instruction, that benefits solely intel processors, that would give them an advantage.

Essentially, if AMD had a same or similar instruction, it may level the playing field?

 

I know this is early days, and we have no real legitimacy to these tests, but that's worrying, very worrying.