Windows 7 Are you a AMD or Intel guy/gal?

[Mike]

To AMD or not to AMD? That is the question.

Many IT pros who remember AMD's past offerings continue to shy away from leaning towards the big A, while others have embraced their new, more affordable CPU designs. For instance, AMD was selling a three core processor some time ago. It was later found that many of these processors were extremely defective former quad core processor that were prone to massive floating point calculation errors, even when one core was disabled. Hence, the birth of the chip "Phenom"! Talk about a bad set of pipes!I'm not sure if this helped Circuit City go out of business in the US, but I was leery even before that.

Both myself and nearly all IT admins and ISP CEOs I have spoken to over the age of 40 are creeped out by buying AMD processors on their systems. A long time ISP owner and I both had a shared experience from the mid-to-late 1990s of our custom built AMD machines exploding on us. Except his were exploding on customers, and my computer almost set a house on fire. Even the website's former server ran on a single AMD Opteron that was out-benched by a Intel Quad Core Q6600. The monthly price also had some kind of 300% markup on equipment.

I do like AMD's graphics cards, although they were quite soundly created by ATI, and for whatever reason, AMD has chosen to preserve the ATI brand name. This could be due to some sort of company spinoff or merger that never happened which I haven't heard about yet. Some might not want to get too fired up about the graphics card comparisons: In 2008, both AMD/ATI and NVIDIA were sued for price fixing in a class action lawsuit. Its safe to say that has changed, however, as AMD seems to have dropped their prices while NVIDIA may still be looking to charge a lot for a Voodoo 5 card, if they can get their hands on one off eBay

Of course, this opinion has been all in good fun. So what are you guys when it comes to *most* of your equipment? AMD or Intel?

 

[kemical]

Hmm... true some of AMD's chips were a little suspect in the beginning but the above is like saying 'I don't use windows today because windows 95 was crap'.
As we all know that was years ago and todays chips, whilst still not as fast in certain benchmarks, can provide a real alternative to the monopoly offered by Intel. This is especially true when it comes to gaming and the like.

 

[Mike]

Its funny, as you say, that due to that one experience, and from my early days working... everyone was "we stay away from AMD" and then I would hear the horrors. When my computer caught fire it was actually on an Asus board with a AMD Athlon.. back in those days the Athlons ran major hot and packed a lot of power. I do think Intel is an excellent and innovative company but they have their weakness. Primarily the boards they manufacture for Dell and other OEMs... compared to retail boards, they don't stand a chance. One could not be as successful without the other. But because of my early experiences and even my exgirlfriend's uncles computer self-terminating... I could never use AMD again. They were smart to buy ATI though for sure. Much like for brand loyalty I would pick up a Gigabyte board before Asus, I'd go with a Intel chip before ever considering AMD.. for some its not a factor

 

[Jimbo22]

I'm a Dodge, GMC and a AMD chip Man until the end of time!!!!!!

 

[Highwayman]

Intel still sway my views on CPUs, but that mainly down to bad experiences a long time ago with AMD, that said I was of much the same view with GPUs, being a longtime fanboy for all things Nvidia until the fiasco of the 1st generation fermis which I was poised to buy until they give so little bangs for bucks compared to AMD's DX11 cards at the time. I haven't regretted jumping to my AMD 5870 nearly a year ago, so I'm not stuck in the rut like many diehard fanboys who stick with products even when they are outed as inferior for whatever reasoning.

If I was building a rig from scratch I would consider an AMD, but would have to be the flagship model at the time to keep on par with the upper midrange offering from Intel of similar price point, sadly AMD is still behind in the CPU department even though they are mostly cheaper, I'd maybe use one for a lowend or midrange rig where bangs for bucks is the priority, but not a high end one, they are still a few generations from taking Intels top spot.

 

[Highwayman]

Much like for brand loyalty I would pick up a Gigabyte board before Asus, I'd go with a Intel chip before ever considering AMD.. for some its not a factor

Wow Gigabyte over ASUS, I've hated Gigabyte boards for donkeys years, most of my mates insist on buying them and they always find there way to me to repair within 6 months with endless problems... unlike my friends like myself that avoid them and dont have any issues, I tend to stick with ASUS, MSI, or Intel branded ones for my rig builds for folk.

 

[Jimbo22]

Wow Gigabyte over ASUS, I've hated Gigabyte boards for donkeys years, .

I've never heard it put quite like that.....but I like like it.....ASUS is my mobo brand too!!!!!

 

[Highwayman]

I dunno, I was just gasping at the fact people find them stable enough to be brand loyal, I suppose they are the lucky ones...

 

[Mike]

I dunno, I was just gasping at the fact people find them stable enough to be brand loyal, I suppose they are the lucky ones...

Google likes them too Google Picks Gigabyte for Efficiency/Reliability

 

[Highwayman]

Well it's certainly good to know, but I still find them stigmatised like AMD CPUs myself...

 

[stueycaster]

AMD has shot themselves in the foot time and time again. In the days of "Athlon 64 vs Pentium 4" they were great. Then they chose to rest on their laurels while Intel got real real smart. I had a Turion64 x2 that ran way too hot and I've seen others just like mine.

I'm no fanboy of anything. I just do research and do what my research tells me is best. AMD really needs to straighten out.

 

[Highwayman]

Well it's just as well they bought ATI to take a sidestep away from having all the eggs in one basket, admittedly now they fight a war of two fronts, ask Hitler how that worked out...lol

 

[Highwayman]

Also worth stating Intel are far from perfect, just look at the recent fiasco with the Sandybridge chips SATA controller bugs, which has started a mass recall of the "Cougar" versions

 

[Krypto]

I got to go with AMD there products are much cheaper amd top of the line is around $250 while intels is $1000 when you are on a budget you got to go with the cheaper option

 

[19ramman85]

Didn't or don't have much of a choice! lol Everything PC I've boughten over the years has been AMD.
But then, what do you expect living in a rural area? Hmmmm - lol

-charles

 

[Highwayman]

I got to go with AMD there products are much cheaper amd top of the line is around $250 while intels is $1000 when you are on a budget you got to go with the cheaper option

The problem with that statement is that the top end AMD doesnt even stand up that well against the £250 Sandybridge i7 2500k CPU, let alone the Gulftown sixcore.

 

[Krypto]

The problem with that statement is that the top end AMD doesnt even stand up that well against the £250 Sandybridge i7 2500k CPU, let alone the Gulftown sixcore.

if I had the money I would probably go with intel but right now amd is cheaper

 

[fjgold]

Intel processors for me.
Don't care for AMD/ATi simply because they dropped support for a large piece of their GPU product line in March 2009.

Overnight, owners of these products were deprived of the latest driver updates.
Prior to that AMD\Catalyst had monthly updates available for their Catalyst drivers.
This move primarily affected Linux users since their new Linux drivers would no
longer work with many Linux distributions.

By not working I mean that if the user managed to get the newest drivers installed they would "break"
the GUI.

This move forced us Linux users to rely on "open source" drivers that didn't provide hardware 3-D acceleration.

 

[stueycaster]

Like I said AMD keeps shooting themselves in the foot over and over again. Intel hardware out performs AMD right across the board. I used to be an AMD guy but they blew it.

They are starting to get it together with their video line though.

 

[Highwayman]

Just to add fuel to the fire on the price vs power thing, I just bought the I7 870 2.9ghz for a paltry £135 inc postage, which beats even the AMD 6-core, also much of the mid to high end Intel chips got a huge price reduction at the weekend, Intel even knocked £200 off Gulftowns