The AMD conspiracy ???

[ghostwriter]

I wanted to buy myself a new AMD computer so I head up to my local incred!ble corruption store and was told by the person working there that I cannot have an AMD computer. They do not keep stock of it nor can I order one.

Now the same is true with our local M@trix computer store. So what is the deal? According to two highly credited highly trusted online computer stores, AMD is the cheaper computer a perfect ideal system that will not break the bank.

The Problem is! I personally like the idea of returning something if it is broken or DOA "Dead on Arrival" So I asked the local computer dealers why AMD is not a stock item. The BS was astounding, they claim that Intel is cheaper and gives more for my money. Please feel free to check for yourself it was found that AMD's are dirt cheap and they give you honest performance for your money. That said for a middle range AMD I can buy an entry level Intel that is a crappy i3.

So I am not getting the truth from incred!ble corruption nor am I getting any answers from M@trix. What is the truth? Are suppliers forcing an Intel products policy on us?

[desA]

Given SA's ongoing support of numerous cartels, it would not surprise me in the least.

[ghostwriter]

I actually tried to send AMD an e-mail… I logged onto their page and everything! Sadly they want all my private info and more. After all that my e-mail was declined

Thus concluding that AMD really don't care much for customer feedback at all. Maybe that is the problem with AMD, they did one hell of a PR on their product and now we are all interested... the sales team failed us miserably....

[desA]

Perhaps AMD is not really interested in doing business in SA?

[ghostwriter]

Well that was my conclusion after trying my best to contact them. They are not interested so I will not be interested in them. Maybe we must do one of those YouTube formulas... an example would be: "AMD = PIE FACE SQUARED" or something then let Facebook do its thing?

[AndyD]

In all fairness AMD have been losing the processor wars against Intel for several years now. There's very few of their products that would measure up to the Intel equivalent on performance or price. Maybe that's why the retail outlets are dropping them.

[twinscythe12332]

They're supporting the chip that gives them the least hassles. Your experience should point towards that. Just because something looks like it's got more power for less, doesn't mean that it does.

[ghostwriter]

They're supporting the chip that gives them the least hassles. Your experience should point towards that. Just because something looks like it's got more power for less, doesn't mean that it does.

Hallo twinscythe12332 First and foremost your avatar rocks!!!

Secondly I know Intel is the better computer but the reality check is budget. I cannot get a nice i5 but I can get a nice AMD for a bit less. Now yes it will not be as fast as the i5 but it just might kick the i3 in the in the round and hairries.

So yes I am with you all the way when it comes to Intel thing is there are no less than 3 options available The LGA 1156 the bigger LGA 1155 AKA Sandy-Bridge and the "NEW" LGA 2011 AKA Sandy-Bridge E. I am not going to pretend I know this lingo because I don’t. All I know one is about to kick the bucket that would be the old LGA 1156 and the other two is way too expensive to matter.

Hopefully prices will come down but… in the mean time I need a pc… So I hoped AMD would like to come home with me…

But AMD's mom said NO!!!

[irneb]

Firstly ... there isn't "actually" something like an Intel- or an AMD-PC. Both those are only a component inside the PC, neither manufacturer make the entire thing for you (it's like Bosch making parts for cars but don't make cars themselves) ... just the "brains" (or CPU - Central Processing Unit) - which is a rather small chip placed onto the main board inside the box.

Secondly: Given, it's the "main" portion of the PC and without it the PC can't do much, it's usually nothing more than 10-20% of the entire PC's cost. E.g. the SandyBridge i7-2600K (top of the range SandyBridge) is around R3000 if you buy the component separately, the i5-2500K around R2100 and the AMD FX 8150 around R2500. Do a search on http://www.pricecheck.co.za for these and others. And any PC with one of those in would usually go for around R12k to R20k - medium to high-end "gaming" PC. The reason being you'd have some serious RAM, a decent graphics card, extra cooling, large & fast hard drive, etc. Otherwise it would be like placing a F1-engine into a Nissan-1400-body, the first time you press the petrol you break the whole drive-shaft to pieces. So you can see it as the rest of the PC is chosen to match the CPU so the whole thing won't fall over, or become over heated, or cause slow downs through other parts and thus nullifying the faster CPU's performance.

3rd: AMD isn't necessarily cheaper at all. You get stupidly priced AMD's (e.g. the Opteron range), but you also get those from Intel (e.g. Xeon) ... around R2,000 to R10,000 in both ranges. Then you also get the cheap as dirt from both (AMD-Sempron and Intel-Celeron) for around R200-500. And any number of other stuff in between those extremes. Again use pricecheck to see those prices from real SA shops.

The rule of thumb IMO is that if you get a similarly priced PC, expect similar performance at best. So if you want better performance than a Celeron with 2GB RAM, 100GB HDD & onboard graphics for around R4000 for the package, then don't expect a R3800 Sempron with the same additions to be any better at all (it might even be worse).

From my own experience, AMD used to be ever so slightly faster than Intel (especially with 3D calculations). But their prices were much of a muchness if you compare apples to apples. These days AMD has fallen behind quite drastically, especially after the Sandy Bridges came out. There is no AMD to compare with the i7-2600, the closest match is the afore mentioned FX8150 which benchmarks at around 17% slower for 16% less cost. And you can even find one of the older Xeons which still benchmarks higher than the FX for less than the FX (e.g. the Xeon E31230 for around R2500). What I can say though, AMD has a tendency to have much more finicky CPU's - they tend to overheat quite a lot and thus you need better cooling systems for them - which usually then negates the slight saving in price.

[irneb]

BTW ... don't be fooled about higher GHz. There's much more than just those to influence the actual speed you experience. A much more accurate thing would be to compare their actual tested benchmarks: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ Things like cach size, bus speed, bus chain length, etc. have an influence. Thus you can even get things like a mobile i7-2820QM @ 2.3GHz giving similar speed to a i7-2600S @ 2.8GHz. The PC can only be as fast as the slowest link in the chain, so if the bus speed (i.e. how fast can the CPU send & receive data to/from the mother board) is low - then it doesn't help much that the CPU can run at 5GHz. If the cache (the very quick RAM inside the CPU) is so very small then it needs to fetch data more often through the slow front-side bus. There are other factors around the CPU itself as well, but in most instances you'd find that the CPU is not the bottle-neck making the PC appear slow. It's usually rather the hard-drive and RAM which affects the speed you see, or even the motherboard's controllers.

And extra cores are not necessarily a "good" thing. It depends on what you're doing on your PC. Most programs can only use one single core at a time, so having an 8 core with hyper threading and running only Word on it means that 15/16ths of the CPU is never used at all. If you tend to have several programs opened and running background stuff all the time, then a core per program might be a good idea - though still it depends on what those programs are doing (whether they can continue working and using the CPU without waiting for user interaction). In general it's only programs which you tend to give an instruction and then wait several hours for the result which benefit from multiple cores, things like a 3d rendering program such as 3dStudio / Maya.

So my suggestion would be to go for as much (and as fast) RAM as you can afford, and as fast a hard-drive as possible, rather than overpowering your CPU. Generally I work in this order when looking for a performance based PC on a tight budget: RAM / Hard Drive (around same order), Motherboard's speed, CPU's speed, Graphics Card's speed. Sometimes that order gets adjusted, or other aspects inserted into it depending on the usage case, but it's a good rule to start from. This is why a tech-savy salesman would usually start by asking his customer what they want to do on their PC, if you're only going to write letters and emails the PC need not be designed for encoding HD video to a BluRay disc. The hardest one to design for is someone who's a jack-of-all-trades type, they tend to do a little of all, but then you need to find out what is going to be the major use and start the design from that - adding only if budget permits.

[windog]

Firstly ... there isn't "actually" something like an Intel- or an AMD-PC. Both those are only a component inside the PC, neither manufacturer make the entire thing for you (it's like Bosch making parts for cars but don't make cars themselves) ... just the "brains" (or CPU - Central Processing Unit) - which is a rather small chip placed onto the main board inside the box.

Well let me jump right in, Firstly the main-board/motherboard contains multiple chipsets made mostly by eastern manufacturers, it is not AMD or Intel chips driving the graphics or not on all models. You get Via, creative, Invidia, SIS. Now the RAM or memory can be Samsung to Kingston depending on taste.

Still the main component would be the CPU or now known as APU depending on model. For the most part Intel is dominant this was due to the fact that early day AMD systems had a tendency to "pop" There were no money in their unstable product so it got a bad reputation.

That said the new AMD systems still run like toasters but thanks to innovations such as heat-pipe cooling and even liquid cooling AMD is running much more stable. It is worth pointing out that if you install liquid cooling it is considered safe to use if you do it correctly! There are also non conductive liquids available that will add to your peace of mind.

As for the most part the NEW AMD systems give you performance especially in gamming. It is not as slow as most will tell you. Yes the benchmarking utilities will give it a low score but in actual game play an example would be FEAR 3 you can expect all the blood and gore and more.

Intel became too expensive if you look at the 775 Quad-Core it maintained a high price till end of life. To date their Core i3 is a pi$$ poor excuse of a CPU. If you cannot get an i5 don’t go for Intel.

I only suggest if do go for AMD spend that little extra and get a proper cooling solution to go with it.

[nico42]

You are scaring me^^ I will never buy an AMD computer

[irneb]

I wouldn't say "Never get an AMD". Just make sure you have decent cooling and you should be fine. As windog states, for some purposes AMD actually performs faster (and as I've also stated AMD's 3d calculations through the 3dNow acceleration used to be faster than Intel), but stop me if I'm wrong: doesn't gaming performance have more to do with the GPU than the CPU/APU?. Though these days for my line of work the 2nd Gen i7 is simply the best performance/price/stability ratio. Who knows, perhaps the new year will usher in an awesome AMD and my advice would change - though it would need to be truly AWESOME to surmount the stigma of their overheating from earlier.

For me robustness is maybe a bit more of an issue than speed. Usually I'm rendering 3D graphics to huge resolutions (in excess of 9000x4000 pixels) so a single frame can take anywhere from an hour to several days of 100% usage on a multi-core CPU. Thus far the i7-2600 has not given any overheating issues in the past year or so. Actually I should be using a Xeon for my purposes, but they're simply too expensive for the same performance - they're supposed to be made for servers and are meant to be as robust as they come, but the price simply places them outside my range. The AMD's I've used previously would constantly shut down if they had any overheating safeties (if not they'd simply melt), I haven't tried liquid cooling yet - but that again starts upping the price over my budget.

On the low-end PC's (i.e. Celeron/Sempron/Atom/etc.) you'd not expect such massively extreme use anyway. Those would usually be installed in a PC/Laptop/Notebook for general purpose email and letter writing, not gaming and long running calculation. So here you wouldn't need as great an emphasis on robustness, and thus the overheating becomes less of an issue.

My point is that using AMD is not necessarily cheaper than using Intel. For your purpose you might find that the AMD is sufficient or even better than the equivalent Intel (even if you have to incorporate extra cooling). But this isn't the case in all scenarios, and sometimes the pendulum swings the other way as well: both in terms of new developments every now and again, as well as in terms of the particular use you place on the CPU. So stating that AMD is cheaper, is far from a blanket statement (especially if not specifying which AMD compared to which Intel ==> Sempron is WAAAAAYYYY cheaper than Xeon, but you can't be expected to compare the 2 now can you?) - whether it's a 50-50 statement is debatable as well (depends on scenario).