AMD is Not Better at Gaming!

[OvRiDe]

Come on Ken.. you don't have to hold back.. Tell us what you really think! Keeping it all bottled up is not good for your health!

[artoodeeto]

LOL...maybe I'm weird (and maybe it's cuz I usually have a good video card and my screens are 1600x1200, so I'm not running games at ultra-high res), but I usually go for whichever chip is priced better. I've been on AMD for years now, and thanks to a great deal from Ken a number of months ago, I have one of the FX8120 or 8150 (I forget which). And guess what...it runs games like Mass Effect 3 perfectly fine, all detail stuff is up all the way, no hitches. And that's enough for me.

[TheGreatSatan]

That's part of it. It doesn't matter what chip you're using, if you pair it with a Radeon 5450 or a GeForce 8400 it will suck at gaming. Real beautiful gaming will come from a high end GPU and enough RAM. The chip is actually not that big of a deal. A Dual core proc from either manufacturer will be more than enough

[farlo]

im cheap, thats why i usually go amd.

[slaveofconvention]

a high end chip from either manufacturer is fast enough nowadays to run just about anything - sure if you put them head to head and run tech tests you may find a difference, but if you'll see that difference in real-world terms is another matter entirely.

I've always been AMD - up until I built a Core 2 Quad Q6700 system a few years back - last few have been AMD - as of now, my main PC is an 8120, my son, wife and the media centre are all dual core AMD Athlon II around the 250 point - all of the laptops in the house are intel based so I no longer have any loyalty at all - it's all about bang-per-buck where AMD does still reign until you get to the higher price points. For pure performance, Intel does still have the edge though

[Bopher]

#1 reason I bought AMD last time I built a system, we're talking 5 years ago at least here now, was because of price. When I updated my dads system years and years ago to make it so my brother could play Ultima 5, or what ever he needed the upgrade for, I could of upgraded MB to take an AMD chip, but stuck with the Intel board because it performed better then the AMD chips at the time. For the price of the Intel chip yeah I could of bought the MB and AMD chip but if the performance wasn't going to be there I wasn't going to bother. I have every intention, with the chips that are out currently and probably in the future, to build my next gaming PC with an intel chip because they are really making AMD work for the gaming market. And TGS is right. You mostly need a good GPU and a good amount of RAM now to run a game like it is suppose to.

[crenn]

I recently bought an AMD APU and it's my first CPU where the memory controller is on the silicon die of the CPU, so far I'm enjoying using the new computer, but when I do certain things, I can occasionally feel it struggle, but it's not meant to be a performance machine, I still have my Intel Q6600 machine for that very reason.

[mDust]

I agree that AMD is not superior to Intel chips in terms of performance. Intel has held the crown across the board for the better part of a decade now. AMD is almost always cheaper. Want a top of the line AMD cpu? $200-400...Intel? Usually $500-1000. Are Intel chips 3x faster? Never that I've seen.

Currently, on Newegg, AMD's 8150 flagship is <$200, Intel's 3960x is >$1000. 70-80% the performance for 1/5 the price? Put my vote down for AMD this round. I've owned a PentII, PentIII, PentIV, some core 2 that I've forgotten, Q6600, and currently a 1090t. I bought the PentIV and Core 2 for rendering 3D stills and video because they were better for that task than the AMD alternatives. The Q6600 was on sale...then so was the 1090t.

For gaming, AMD is a much cheaper alternative that doesn't result in a huge performance loss in the real world. If all you do is render/encode/etc, then I would recommend Intel at the moment. I could definitely see why 'stupid experts' would recommend AMD over Intel for gaming. On the other hand, if one has a large budget, Intel would perform slightly better.

[Cale_Hagan]

Originally Posted by TheGreatSatan

That's part of it. It doesn't matter what chip you're using, if you pair it with a Radeon 5450 or a GeForce 8400 it will suck at gaming. Real beautiful gaming will come from a high end GPU and enough RAM. The chip is actually not that big of a deal. A Dual core proc from either manufacturer will be more than enough

^this^ both are great for gaming... if that is what you plan on doing mainly. but AMD is insanely cheaper... if you have an extreme budget, go for the extreme chips...

Originally Posted by mDust

I agree that AMD is not superior to Intel chips in terms of performance. Intel has held the crown across the board for the better part of a decade now. AMD is almost always cheaper. Want a top of the line AMD cpu? $200-400...Intel? Usually $500-1000. Are Intel chips 3x faster? Never that I've seen.

Currently, on Newegg, AMD's 8150 flagship is <$200, Intel's 3960x is >$1000. 70-80% the performance for 1/5 the price? Put my vote down for AMD this round. I've owned a PentII, PentIII, PentIV, some core 2 that I've forgotten, Q6600, and currently a 1090t. I bought the PentIV and Core 2 for rendering 3D stills and video because they were better for that task than the AMD alternatives. The Q6600 was on sale...then so was the 1090t.

For gaming, AMD is a much cheaper alternative that doesn't result in a huge performance loss in the real world. If all you do is render/encode/etc, then I would recommend Intel at the moment. I could definitely see why 'stupid experts' would recommend AMD over Intel for gaming. On the other hand, if one has a large budget, Intel would perform slightly better.

^this too.... Love AMD, but went intel for a variety of reasons. when i revamped my system, money wasn't an issue. plus, i am a freak about waiting. i want zero lag EVER, insanely quick boot times, and an unstoppable comp for any game in the next 4+ years... so thats what i got.

[mDust]

Originally Posted by Cale_Hagan

... i am a freak about waiting. i want zero lag EVER, insanely quick boot times, and an unstoppable comp for any game in the next 4+ years...

Look into ramdisks and SSDs...or at the very least 'short stroking' and RAID0. Modern CPUs are not going to bottleneck typical games and programs. If anything, the lag is the CPU waiting for more data to crunch from that antiquated HDD that we all still have. Even the atom in my netbook has to wait on my HDD when loading things.