Intel versus AMD; why the insane price difference?

the_syco

Looking at AMD and Intel, and wondering which would be better for gaming and graphic manipulation (photoshop)?

I'm seeing AMD AM3 socket 4.2GHz quad core chips going for €110 and AMD's AM3 socket 4GHz octo core going for €175.

On the other end, I'm seeing Intels socket 1155 3.5GHz quads go for €2901 and having to go into stupid money for Intels octo (for now, anyway).

So I'm wondering is it because Intels chips are better, or are they charging high because they can? Also, is there anything that actually uses all of AMDs 8 cores, and are they "real" octos? Read somewhere a while back that they're only working like 6 core chips?

Using a 2.83GHz Intel Q9550 quad atm, and thinking of saving for a new system around summertime, but not sure who to go for? I've owned AMD in the past, and as I prefer power over brand name, AMD's 4.2GHz quads appeal to me.

Torqay

the_syco wrote: »

I prefer power over brand name

If you prefer raw power over brand then get the Intel as it still has the edge, if you compare price and performance then the AMD is clearly better bang for the buck.

the_syco wrote: »

are they "real" octos?

It's debatable whether they're genuine 8 core processors. The FX-8350 is a four module cpu, each module contains two integer cores (thus eight cores total) but only one FPU.

U_Fig

Regardless of the clock speed and nunber of cores. Intel cost more because in terms of performance on a day to day basis they have the edge.. Especially at the high end As you come down towards the lower end you see that amd start to become very competitive with intel offering slighty more performance in some cases for cheaper but the fact is AMD simple cannot compare At high end with intel..

H3llR4iser

Man, you're comparing CPUs that have different market targets - one could argue that the proper comparison for the FX-8350 is this:

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/Socket+1155/63549/Intel+Core+i5-3570+Box%2C+LGA1155.article

The i7 you posted is ultra-high-end, and right now AMD has no equivalent, unfortunately

briany

There is this perception that AMD units just don't perform as well as their Intel counterparts. The hash that AMD seemingly made of their much touted 'Bulldozer' architecture last year confirmed this in the eyes of many consumers and it's been a particular struggle for them since. I'm guessing that undesirable tag will take a while to lose and is at least part of the reason for the current price gulf. I've been tempted on more than one occasion to go AMD but it's hard to justify a saving of 70 euros or so in the mid end when looking to build a system that I'll be using for 2-4 years.

Maragenie

Ivy Bridge i5 3570k is the CPU you want to be heading towards if you're willing to pay 200 yoyos. If your budget is under go AMD.

Overheal

i like the underdog and I followed the corporate histories a little bit. First thing I always like to point out, is Intel has the same R&D budget tucked away in it's operating dollars that AMD as a company has in it's entire revenues; AMD is a tiny company by the moneys, compared to Intel, yet they still give Intel the competitive run, especially for a company so small by comparison.

AMD is also the company that is largely responsible for the 64-bit architecture all of our machines are currently running. The FX-8150 chip also holds the current guinness world record for the fast microprocessor clock speed, supercooled on 1-core to run 8.461Ghz, since Nov 1, 2011. CPU-z reports a faster record on an FX-8350 @ 8.794Ghz

In 2005, AMD filed suit, successfully, against Intel for antitrust. This pisses me off, because I believe in the free market: Intel was found to be offering secretive rebates, kickbacks, and basically bribes to big names like Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba, etc. not only to sell Intel based machines, but to Not sell AMD based machines. OEMs became increasingly reliant on the kickbacks intel was making to them. When I think it was HP or Dell that tried to introduce a new line of AMD laptops, Intel threatened to cease all of it's kickbacks, and the product line got canned.

Intel is a much larger company, and if you look at the raw products, can put out a chip which is favored more heavily by gamers. Why in the **** do they need to punch the other guy into the ground? Intel clearly doesn't like playing fair. Don't like it.

That, and since AMD now owns Radeon, I have every reason to like them. I'm still not happy as a customer about the way Nvidia handled it's massive GPU cockup back in the 8000 series. They lied to the press, they lied to investors, they lied to the OEMs and it eroded all of my confidence in the brand. But this isn't a rant about graphics, so I'll cut that rant short.

Downstairs I built an FX-8150 based desktop with I can't even remember what GPU, and upstairs I have a 1055t Hexacore running 2 5770s. I haven't really been disappointed with the performance in either one yet.

Khannie

I love this site. You can see AMD owning the crap out of Intel in the price / performance area for mid to low end chips.

Overheal wrote: »

Intel is a much larger company, and if you look at the raw products, can put out a chip which is favored more heavily by gamers. Why in the **** do they need to punch the other guy into the ground? Intel clearly doesn't like playing fair. Don't like it.

I don't really like it myself, but it's about shareholder value at that kind of level and it really is about crushing the competition.

As you say though - I'm continually amazed that with their comparatively tiny R&D budget that they're still knocking out competitive processors.

H3llR4iser

Overheal wrote: »

i like the underdog and I followed the corporate histories a little bit. First thing I always like to point out, is Intel has the same R&D budget tucked away in it's operating dollars that AMD as a company has in it's entire revenues...

Well of course, but the fact is that in the past, as you partly pointed out, AMD has been not only been able to match Intel but often to blow the doors off their products (e.g. the Athlon vs Pentium 4 era). This created an expectations towards AMD that is unfortunately hard to match right now

Overheal

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Well of course, but the fact is that in the past, as you partly pointed out, AMD has been not only been able to match Intel but often to blow the doors off their products (e.g. the Athlon vs Pentium 4 era). This created an expectations towards AMD that is unfortunately hard to match right now

Depends on where you look. AMD is giving Intel something to sweat over in the Mid Range/Low Range laptop arena. As mentioned, when they bought Radeon, they began project Fusion which we're into the 3rd and 4th generation of now, in the form of Laptop APUs which are true multicore processors with significant GPU sets on the die slot. In contrast, Intel HD 4000. whoop.

In order to get a gaming experience in a laptop right now you have 2 mainstream options, and I'll use current US models. One, is to go with an Intel CPU and a Dedicated GPU, which will take you up above the $800 mark. On the AMD side, the entry point for the same bang is $500. I'm even being fair and comparing an i5 with a sideline GPU and an AMD A10. In direct comparison between the A10's 7660G on-die GPU and Intel HD 4000 on the Ivy Bridge i7 (Note, for x86 instruction, we're talking about 2 very different chips here on 2 very different playing fields and 2 very different price points: both are physically quad core, and the i7-3620QM is logically an 8-core from multithreading. In intensive applications like video editing, the i7 will always trump the A10), we notice some very interesting things:

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/integrated-gpu-battle-6620g-7660g-hd-4000-hd-3000/

From the article, the 7660G gets a regularly small, yet frequent lead in performance over the HD 4000 when it comes to gaming. Even for CPU intensive games like Starcraft II this appears to be the case. I found that surprising (though it's not clear if the reviewer when in for an 8 player max supply slaughterfest - that would really test it out). For some engines, like Source (Portal 2) the 7660G gets over a 50% lead in framerate over the HD4000.

2 different processors aimed at 2 entirely different markets, but if you're gaming and you don't have a massive budget to get a core-i processor and a dedicated card, you're going to be better off with the AMD solution.

he fact of the matter is AMD doesn't have the same company focus that it had back in the Athlon era, and they have publicly stated as much too. Their current focus is not a race to the top with Intel, I think they feel - correctly - that it's a money war and it's a money war they can't win with a company six times their size. Unless you think of Iron Monger and Iron Man and the Icing Problem.... bah

Instead AMD is focused on hybrid solutions and looking into niches that Intel is not. And it's only in the last generation Intel reacted to this and said "...hey wait" and they tried to put a serious effort into making their HD Graphics set actually... not suck. But AMD has a few years lead and they bought out a Graphics company, so... yeah. This is why AMD is mainly focused on it's Accelerated Processor unit. Reason being an APU can deliver a more-rounded PC experience at a lower cost and on average consumer far less energy than an intel+GPU solution.

As a result, over the last 3 years AMD's market share has steadily grown in areas where it hasn't in a very long time. Intel has virtually 100% market share in Server CPUs (and that's most of the reason they are filthy rich) but it's had year over year steady growth in the laptop space. GPU-wise, "Intel HD" still has 60% of the GPU market (bleh), while AMD has 25%. Nvidia has 16% of GPU market share - at the high end, AMD and Nvidia are virtually tied: http://seekingalpha.com/article/855481-amd-versus-intel-not-a-fair-fight

The biggest threat to AMD right now is if Intel continues to really try and bite back at the APU. But for right now if you want a much more balanced processor, the APU is it. Intel will try to shut them down by throwing huge wads of cash at making next gen Intel HD graphics even better, but that will be bad news for consumers; the more they shut their only competitor out of the market, the more leverage they have to control a monopoly on the price of the top line CPUs. There is your insane price difference - The other reason why I choose to buy the Fair Value CPU over the top performer for way less power-to-price.

You may have the expectation that AMD is supposed to come out with the next Intel-killing CPU that will blast it out of the park for overall performance (herro? 8Ghz overclock?? OT) but I simply expect them to offer far better Price for Performance, and for that expectation they continue to do extremely well for themselves.

Khannie

Overheal wrote: »

Intel has virtually 100% market share in Server CPUs (and that's most of the reason they are filthy rich

I wonder if the advent people looking to move to private cloud architectures will see AMD erode Intel´s lead there. Certainly if I were looking at building a commodity hardware system to deploy a private cloud on, it would not be with expensive intel based rackmount kit. Much better to go the google way with disposable hardware and if that´s your route, then AMD is the obvious choice.

Torqay

Overheal wrote: »

Intel has virtually 100% market share in Server CPUs

This is not exactly true, in 2011 AMD held a pretty solid market share of 20% here (24% in desktop CPUs, 17% in mobile CPUs). Which isn't really a surprise because not only are AMD servers competitively priced, they also deliver performance (which cannot be said for their laptop chips).

Having said that, I couldn't find any conclusive figures for 2012 and chances are that Intel's E5-1650 might have hurt AMD sales somewhat, since it outperforms AMD's fastest Opteron, the 6272 and costs just $18 more.

Khannie

Torqay wrote: »

in 2011 AMD held a pretty solid market share of 20% here

Wow. I'm shocked. I haven't been looking hard, but I've never noticed AMD kit in server rooms before. I know that Amazon use them at least somewhat in their cloud architecture (you can see it in the /proc/cpuinfo file if you have a vm with them).

Torqay

And then there is that:

As of December, 2012, the fastest known supercomputer in the world, Titan, used 18,688 AMD Opteron 6274 16-core CPUs and ran at 17.59 petaFLOPS.

18,688... that's is quite a lot if chips.

Overheal

Regard to laptops Torq, the AMDs hold their own, it's generally though in terms of graphics performance and energy consumption, plus cost.

Torqay

Overheal wrote: »

Regard to laptops Torq, the AMDs hold their own, it's generally though in terms of graphics performance and energy consumption, plus cost.

We can safely discard anything below the A-8 as utterly useless and even AMD's top mobile processors are mid-level, at best, in comparison to Intel's Ivy Bridge. With a little bit of good will, you could rate an A-10 laptop on par with a Core i5/GT 630M laptop and the latter you can actually find cheaper, at least over here. AMD became the laughing stock when they lined up the A-8 against the i5 and the A-10 against the Core i7 and priced them accordingly.

If compared to Intel, a Sandy Bridge Core i3-2310M is roughly on a similar level to the A10-4600M.

The performance of the HD 7660G GPU is noticeably faster than the HD Graphics 4000.

The power consumption of the A10-4600M APU is rated at 35 Watt TDP and is therefore comparable to mid-range dual-core Ivy Bridge processors.

... say the lads at notebookcheck.com and they run a whole rake of benchmarks. PassMark rates the A-10 level with a Sandy Bridge Core i5.

Trinity laptops are hardly selling at all. Some customers are buying Fusion laptops alright, because they're dirt cheap (A laptop with 8 GB RAM for 350 yoyos? WOW!) but the user experience can be extremely frustrating, mildly spoken. What do they expect from a "netbook chip" under the workload of a regular laptop?

Overheal

AMD became the laughing stock when they lined up the A-8 against the i5 and the A-10 against the Core i7 and priced them accordingly.

I don't know whats happening in the European market but in the domestic (US) market AMD does pit the A10 against the i7, but it doesn't compete on the same price point at all. That said, The A10 has comparable graphics performance. At least here, it's the case that you can find an A10 several hundred dollars cheaper than an i7 with GPU, and at the same price point as the 3rd gen i5 without a seperate GPU.

Torqay

I just had a quick look at LD (amongst the cheapest places where to buy around here): 2 A-10 laptops in stock. one new and one refurb.



The cheapest i5/GT 30M combo costs exactly the same as the refurbished A-10.



And for €1060, I'll get a Core i7 3630, GT 670MX, 8 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD Full HD laptop at PC specialist. I'll happily pay 20 yoyos more a for a real gaming PC which will be running circles around the MSI with its A-10.

Overheal

thats sad.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+ENVY+15.6%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+6GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Natural+Silver/6819205.p;jsessionid=4131118A24C49FE89D326163759D4799.bbolsp-app02-47?id=1218808163771&skuId=6819205&st=HP%20M6&cp=1&lp=3 4th gen A10, 7660G, 6GB/750GB, $549

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+ENVY+15.6%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+8GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Natural+Silver/7703056.p;jsessionid=4131118A24C49FE89D326163759D4799.bbolsp-app02-47?id=1218858583403&skuId=7703056&st=HP%20M6&cp=1&lp=2 3rd gen i5, HD4000, 8GB/750GB, $699

Off-sale, the i5 without dedicated GPU and +2GB RAM is an extra $100. Lol no.

Obviously there are some market fluctuations at play here. Intel having a major fabrication plant in Ireland doesn't really explain why AMD is priced so high though. What about actual CPU costs, is it that AMD is charging more in these markets or that vendors are marking up the AMDs and taking the piss?

Torqay

If they'd be selling A-10 laptops for 549 yoyos here, I'd be the first to recommend them.

AMD don't seem to publish prices for mobile Trinity APUs.

Overheal

One big win for AMD: the Playstation 4 to be powered by an AMD "Jaguar" Accelerated Processing Unit

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/APU-Jaguar-PlayStation-Kabini-Temash,21229.html

for the PlayStation 4, AMD leveraged the building blocks of its 2013 product "roadmap" for PCs and created a solution that incorporates the upcoming "Jaguar" CPU cores with next-generation Radeon graphics, thus delivering nearly 2 TFLOPS of compute performance. This will allow developers to "fundamentally" change the console gaming experience by letting them harness the power of parallel processing.

As stated on Wednesday, the APU will consist of eight x64 AMD "Jaguar" cores and a next-generation Radeon GPU comprised of 18 "compute units" capable of cranking out 1.84 teraflops. This chip will be backed by 8 GB of unified GDDR5 RAM (17 GB/sec of bandwidth), a built-in HDD, USB 3.0, a Blu-ray optical drive, Gigabit Ethernet, Wireless N and more. Note that a Radeon HD 7970 is rated at 3.5 teraflops.

AlmightyCushion

Torqay wrote: »

I just had a quick look at LD (amongst the cheapest places where to buy around here): 2 A-10 laptops in stock. one new and one refurb.



The cheapest i5/GT 30M combo costs exactly the same as the refurbished A-10.



And for €1060, I'll get a Core i7 3630, GT 670MX, 8 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD Full HD laptop at PC specialist. I'll happily pay 20 yoyos more a for a real gaming PC which will be running circles around the MSI with its A-10.

The MSI has a 7970M graphics card. AMD processor or Intel that is going to bring the cost up. The 7970M kills the 675M too let alone the 670M.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5778/amd-launches-radeon-7700m-7800m-and-7900m-mobile-gpus

I haven't seen any A10 laptops but I have seen some A8s and they were about the €500 which isn't bad. Certainly worth considering if you're on a budget.

Torqay

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I haven't seen any A10 laptops but I have seen some A8s and they were about the €500 which isn't bad. Certainly worth considering if you're on a budget.

Not really, 500 yoyos will buy you a Core i5 which beats the A-8 by a country mile in terms of processing power and considering the 6620G and HD 4000 being more or less on par as far as gaming performance goes, the choice is an easy one.

As for the A-10 (without a dedicated GPU), being comparable to a i5/GT 630M combo, they should sell it at competitive prices (a they do in the States), I just don't find any offers around here.

IIRC, the refurbished Samsung (which is gone now) was originally sold for €800, bundled with a HD 7650M which supposedly works in CrossFire mode with the integrated HD 7660G, but I haven't seen any benchmarks for this combo.

Overheal

It might be comparable in performance to the i5/630m combo, but on battery life, the A10 not only matches on performance but will excel on energy consumption. Two chips versus one. Think about all the bs NVidia is dealing with because of 'optimus' technology, just to keep their power consumption in check by hopping (poorly) between GPU and Intel HD graphics

Torqay

Well, AMD always claimed you'd get better bang for your buck but I don't see any A-10 offers here to justify this old adage. At LD the cheapest Core i5 is selling for €423 while the cheapest A-8 costs €463, which is anything but competitive, wouldn't you agree? Of course, the pricing is done by OEMs which are in Intel's stranglehold but it doesn't help AMDs laptop market share.

Overheal

Torqay wrote: »

Well, AMD always claimed you'd get better bang for your buck but I don't see any A-10 offers here to justify this old adage. At LD the cheapest Core i5 is selling for €423 while the cheapest A-8 costs €463, which is anything but competitive, wouldn't you agree? Of course, the pricing is done by OEMs which are in Intel's stranglehold but it doesn't help AMDs laptop market share.

Which was my general complaint at the start of the discussion.

AlmightyCushion

Torqay wrote: »

Well, AMD always claimed you'd get better bang for your buck but I don't see any A-10 offers here to justify this old adage. At LD the cheapest Core i5 is selling for €423 while the cheapest A-8 costs €463, which is anything but competitive, wouldn't you agree? Of course, the pricing is done by OEMs which are in Intel's stranglehold but it doesn't help AMDs laptop market share.

You're not really comparing like for like though. I assume you are talking about these two models.

http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/Lenovo_IdeaPad_Z585_8GB_1TB_Windows_8_Laptop__MAD6BUK/version.asp#maindesc

http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/Acer_E1_-Intel_Core_i5-3110__4GB_500GB__Win_8__NX.M09EK.002/version.asp#maindesc

The Lenovo with the AMD processor has:
better battery life (5 hours vs 3.5 hours)
2 USB3 ports (it also has 4 USBs overall instead of just 3 on the Acer)
bigger hard drive (1TB vs 500GB)
more ram (8GBs vs 4GBs)

Personally, I'd choose a Lenovo over an Acer. The Lenovo is a better looking machine (although that is subjective) and it's touchpad is better too. There's a lot more than just the processor in the difference and obviously that will push the price up.

Edit: A more comparable example is this Lenovo with an i5.

http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/Lenovo_Z580_Core_i5_3210M_8Gb_1Tb_DVDRW_Windows_8_Gun_Metal_M81HFUK/version.asp

Spec wise everything else seems the same as the AMD Lenovo you linked to apart from the processor/graphics obviously. It's more than €100 more expensive though.

Torqay

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Personally, I'd choose a Lenovo over an Acer.

So would I... any day.

But you'll get Intel Core i5 Lenovos for the price of the A-8 and 4 GB RAM is not that expensive.

Really, at the same price I would not recommend a AMD-8 over a Core i5 laptop.

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

The Lenovo with the AMD processor has:
better battery life (5 hours vs 3.5 hours)
2 USB3 ports (it also has 4 USBs overall instead of just 3 on the Acer)
bigger hard drive (1TB vs 500GB)
more ram (8GBs vs 4GBs)

I'm well aware, that the two A-8s they offer at LD do have more memory and better specs on paper in general, but that doesn't make the processor any faster, now, does it? The A-8 is after all inferior to the Core i5 and not exactly by a small margin. The question is, if AMD wants to compete in the budget market, where are their competitively priced budget laptops then? And don't tell me Fusion.

I wouldn't be too surprised if Intel told OEMs, "you can sell AMDs all you want, add more RAM, a better battery, whatever, but don't you dare selling them cheaper than our counterparts." All speculation of course, but OEMs don't care much for AMD while they certainly cannot afford to p*** Intel off... or Microsoft. Remember Dell and their Ubuntu computers? "Sure, you can sell your computers with Linux all you want as long as you don't sell them cheaper than your Windows computers."

Overheal

That wasn't to do with Windows that was to do with dell needing to provide in house support for Linux

It also has to be worth their while. So if they save a little in cost on the Linux machines and it makes the Linux machines more profitable, why not. This is capitalism after all, and dell should feel incentivized to even offer such a laptop

Torqay

Overheal wrote: »

That wasn't to do with Windows that was to do with dell needing to provide in house support for Linux

And you really believe that? DELL as OEM also has to provide support for Windows, Microsoft does not provide support for OEM-Software incl. Windows. So either DELL was utterly greedy and kept the "Windows Tax" all for themselves or the reasons are somewhat more sinister. And in light of Microsoft's track record as a bully, I am inclined to believe the latter.

And back on topic: Intel are no saints either...

Torqay

Overheal wrote: »

One big win for AMD: the Playstation 4 to be powered by an AMD "Jaguar" Accelerated Processing Unit

Well, fair play to them and the best of luck... But the console market is no longer what it used to be and SONY headlines lately aren't exactly of the most favourable kind. Not that I feel particularly sorry for them.