AMD Phenom II or Core 2 Quad (Duo) ?

[Tsakali]

why are people saying I should go with intel instead of amd these days?

first off, high end cpu's are not an option for me so lets stick to the ones on subject...

I looked up some benchmarks and it's not so clear cut to me which one to go with, yet the comparable intel option is a little more expensive...is there something I am missing?

In addition: should I get a core 2 Duo or Quad? the performance as I understand it is not that diff.

[Scourge]

The Phenom IIs are not that much lower in performance than the intels. If price is an issue definitely go with AMD. I have the 940 BE and it smokes. There was a pretty big gap with the old Phenoms and intel. Not so much now. This of course is just my opinion. I'm sure the Intel fans will be in here soon to tell you otherwise.

[Foo]

Can't answer the Intel vs AMD question as my last CPU buy was last year when the Q6600 came out and I hopped on the quad-core bandwagon.

Quad-core like-for-like loses out in raw clock speed to dual-core CPUs, but you get a big benefit when multi-tasking or running an application that is multi-core aware.

If you can afford a quad-core chip from either vendor, I'd recommend it. Even if it's got a lower clock speed than an equivalently-priced or cheaper dual-core CPU.

[Scourge]

Also, the new Athlon IIs are quite comparable to the Phenom IIs and a good bit cheaper as well. They both come in 2, 3 and 4 cores.

[Tsakali]

gotta love competition, I'm glad AMD is back in the game, but I probably still go with an intel...the first time in years mind you

[Deathshroud]

AMD is far behind Intel in terms of high performance CPU's. However, if you're on a budget AMD is always the way to go.

[Tsakali]

what benchmarks are you looking at?

[Deathshroud]

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/processors,6.html

[Scourge]

As far as gaming is concerned there's not that much difference, unless you want to pay hundreds or up to $1000 more for the not so humongous gains. Of course I didn't look at all the charts. And to be fair some of those programs I've read are optimized for Intel. However, yes Intel has faster processors, if you want to pay for them.

[Tsakali]

it's all about the cost / performance ratio for me... so in that respect I don't see a clear winner, which is my bottom line anyway thx for that benchmark page Death. it's nicely layed out

[Scourge]

it's all about the cost / performance ratio for me... so in that respect I don't see a clear winner, which is my bottom line anyway thx for that benchmark page Death. it's nicely layed out

Yeah, that's the problem. There is no clear winner. It all depends on what benchmarks you're looking at. It's not as clear cut as it was not long ago.