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Core i7 vs Phenom II


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Also as you say the performance is the biggest difference. I would not look at AMD anymore if you are going to build a computer with pure performance. AMD is so much behind nowadays so I think it's plain stupid buying it. Sure, it's cheaper but then again, it's slower as well. Depending on the situation of course, and AMD would do well if you are just going to have a simple box for browsing or what not, but for pure performance and gaming I'd go Intel anyday!

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Biggest difference I think at the moment is that the Phenom can be used with older motherboards, which are plenty, Core i7 requires new motherboards and chipset which are really expensive at the moment as intel hasn't produced any lower end alternatives. Also Core i7 uses DDR3 where Phenom uses DDR2 still, which is considerable cheaper again.

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As a result of its exceptional energy efficiency advances and an affordable price/performance ratio, AMD Phenom II X4 deserves our seldom-granted Recommended Buy award.

From: Tom's Hardware

I think that sums it up perfectly, until there are cheaper Core i7 motherboards and DDR3's price drops, an AMD Phenom system is going to give you the best for your money, its faster than the Core 2 Quads by about 10% according to the article above and cheaper.

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I'm running a first generation Phenom Quad Core and have been plenty happy with it. Its quiet, runs fairly cool with stock cooling and is fast enough for my needs. And it saved me some money in the process. The only thing I lack with my system is a better GPU. I just can't afford it at the moment.

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It look like i will be buying a q9550 instead of a phenom II. In my life time i have on ly used one AMD (Athelon 64 3800+) machine and it gave up on me. As for all other Intel (486, PIII, 3xP4, C2D, and couple of Celeron), never had any problem with them... except for aging. AMD was only 2½ years old, while i have been pushing most of Intels for 5+ years (and one of p4 has been running for 5+ years 24/7 more or less).

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That is what a AMD fan forgets, with Intel\s price, you do get performance... When was the last time AMD was ahead of Intel...

When the opterons was so popular, oh say a few years ago ;)

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It look like i will be buying a q9550 instead of a phenom II. In my life time i have on ly used one AMD (Athelon 64 3800+) machine and it gave up on me. As for all other Intel (486, PIII, 3xP4, C2D, and couple of Celeron), never had any problem with them... except for aging. AMD was only 2½ years old, while i have been pushing most of Intels for 5+ years (and one of p4 has been running for 5+ years 24/7 more or less).

Im like the complete opposite of you. Every Intel I have owned became unstable, many BSOD's and lots of heat and noise issues. Not to mention more expesnsive than any AMD boxes I have owned. All the AMD machines I had were more stable(less crashes and rarely if ever a BSOD), quieter, cooler and drew less power. I only know this from having my machines run 24/7(Aside from my laptop).

I once had a gateway laptop with an intel mobile celeron and the things was hot all the time and crashed constantly(Probably from the heat). I took it back and got another one, but with an AMD Athlon 64, back in 2006.

My laptop is still like new with 3 years and counting and about the only problem I have with it are cracks around the hinges because I was too cheap and bought a soft case instead of something sturdier to carry it around with. I've used it every day for the past 3 years and run Windows XP Media Center, Back Track and Server 2003 off of it with no problems. I've even ran Vista in a VM off of it when it first came out to test if I wanted to switch, although there is no 3d acceleration so no aero or flip, it ran Vista fine off of it with 1 gig of ram and an aging CPU.

That is just my experience with AMD machines, and yes, I do consider myself a fan of AMD. Started with the KII, then Duron, Athlon and now the Phenom, and couldn't be happier.

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Sure, once upon a time AMD was a bit faster, though Intel has always been stable for me. I never had any real problems with either of the brands and I was a fanboy of AMD when the opteron 145 and 165 was the shit to have. Today I'm a fan of Intel, since they are faster. Sure it's more expensive but "you get what you pay for". AMD knows they are slower and that's why they are cheaper. I've sold a couple of AMD-based laptops (I work in a computer store, and I'm the head of RMA as well) and lot's of them come back. AMD's mobile cpus is a joke, they are too hot. They are a lot of noisier and hotter than intels C2D, heck even the CD was colder...

My first computer was a P2 266, then I moved up to P3 450@500, after that I got myself an AMD AthlonXP 1333@1522, "upgraded" to a shuttle and an 1700 t-bred for OC but never came around to it. Then something happened, I uninstalled the nvidia nforce driver, and my windows install stopped working due to lack of files, it removed some files in sys32, anyways... I sold it, and got an Intel P4 Northwood 2,4 GHz... After a while I upgraded to AMD opteron 165. And now, I have a C2D E8400 and a laptop with atom-cpu, and a itx-board with atom 330 on it's way.

I just like to have the best performing manufacturer in my computer, wether it's AMD, Intel, Nvidia or ATi. Does not matter for me. And when people ask me for what stuff I recommend, I always recommend stuff I'd get myself. Today I would not get myself a AMD-based machine, since I know they are slower and I just want good performance in my workstations. Sure if I want a cheap computer for a small simple server I'd probably go for something from AMD over a Celeron.

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well i am and always will be an amd fanboy

but as im typing this from my newly built less than an hour old amd phenom x4 9500 rig i would say that

cpu motherboard memory all for £190

sorry but its the price point that does it for me with amd

i would get nowhere near that if i wanted to go quad with intel yeah there faster but god damn it aint like im going to be finding a cure for cancer with it

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Which one do you think will keep up for 5 years of 24/7 usage, Intel or AMD.

Both and neither. They both have the ability to run for decades, however it depends on how you treat them, their setup and also luck of the draw on whether you will get one that lasts long.

The most likely components to fail are the motherboard and the psu, invest well in them and you'll limit your problems significantly.

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I look at it like this, you dont have to have cutting edge top of the line performance from a processor to do premium gaming, and if price were not an issue, i would probably have a macbook, but i dont cause money is money.

BTW DISCLAIMER *** HEXSKREW DOES NOT ENDORSE NOR ENCOURAGE THE USE OF ANY APPLE RELATED PRODUCT***

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How did this "Core i7 vs Phenom II" thread turn into an AMD vs Intel issue. As for this thread topic: Core i7 is more future proof imo, spend a few extra bucks and get something that might last 6 months longer. The fact that it supports DDR3 is big factor for me, DDR3 is going to obviously be the replacement for DDR2 so why don't invest into the future. That my take on it.

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How did this "Core i7 vs Phenom II" thread turn into an AMD vs Intel issue. As for this thread topic: Core i7 is more future proof imo, spend a few extra bucks and get something that might last 6 months longer. The fact that it supports DDR3 is big factor for me, DDR3 is going to obviously be the replacement for DDR2 so why don't invest into the future. That my take on it.

Given that hardly anyone upgrades their PC, making it future proof is not a top priority, also given the price of DDR2, you can max that out and spend about half what you would have had to pay for less DDR3 memory.

The Phenom II does support DDR3, in its AM3 socket, which might I add, its backwards compatible with socket AM2+, given you lots of future proof and upgrade-ability if you want it, something Intel has never done.

Also these always turn into fanboy threads, for the record, I like AMDs design, but Intel has a much better solution at the moment, especially with motherboard chipsets, whether they are there's or nVidia's.

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It has always been Intel vs AMD, although i approached it a little differently.

Why does it have to be. I say base every product on it's on merit and not apply a name to it. I want to see benchmarks and review on "products". I don't want biased people giving reviews on a "brad name labels"!

I've owned both AMD and Intel about 50/50. I never fall into the AMD v.s. Intel trap. I go with the "which product at the time it's released is most viable" argument, based on benchmarks and reviews.

The main reason there's this huge AMD v.s. Intel mind set, is because those are the only two main companies out there. So there's only Two major types of CPU's to bar against each other (sadly).

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There is also Via, and Nvidia are getting closer and closer to releasing a x86 chip that could rival the Atom at the very least. TBH, while I'm an Intel guy (had some bad expirences with K6-2's) the pricing for AMD kit does seem interesting. Especially the X3's which look pretty good for virtualization.

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