AMD vs Intel - Desktop processor showdown

Jamie McKane

MyBroadband Journalist
Joined
Mar 2, 2016
Messages
7,000
AMD vs Intel - Desktop processor showdown

AMD recently launched its Ryzen 5000 processors, which it said are the most powerful desktop chips available on the market.

According to AMD, these processors offer the best single-threaded and gaming performance of any desktop chips on the market.
 

Ancalagon

Honorary Master
Joined
Feb 23, 2010
Messages
18,140
Interestingly, someone at work tried to tell me that Intel CPUs were still better for gaming. I was like, bruh, have you seen the benchmarks?

Amazing how many people cling to this old fashioned idea that Intel is the best. I think they will believe that for a while.
 

Totempole

Expert Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2011
Messages
4,849
Interestingly, someone at work tried to tell me that Intel CPUs were still better for gaming. I was like, bruh, have you seen the benchmarks?

Amazing how many people cling to this old fashioned idea that Intel is the best. I think they will believe that for a while.

It all depends on what's available on our local markets to determine overall value. Motherboard costs play a huge role as well in the entry-level sector. AMD doesn't have an answer to an entry level I3 or I5 9th gen build with a discrete graphics card. At least not locally.
 

Ancalagon

Honorary Master
Joined
Feb 23, 2010
Messages
18,140
It all depends on what's available on our local markets to determine overall value. Motherboard costs play a huge role as well in the entry-level sector. AMD doesn't have an answer to an entry level I3 or I5 9th gen build with a discrete graphics card. At least not locally.
I live in the UK, so this was in the UK market. In any case, he wasn't questioning value, but was saying that, for the absolute best gaming performance, buy Intel. This is now flat out wrong, in all games except Red Dead Redemption 2.
 

Totempole

Expert Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2011
Messages
4,849
I live in the UK, so this was in the UK market. In any case, he wasn't questioning value, but was saying that, for the absolute best gaming performance, buy Intel. This is now flat out wrong, in all games except Red Dead Redemption 2.

No doubt and it's also good to see that we're back to the days where AMD is truly giving intel a run for their money, and not just producing alternatives.

I just wish our local markets would reflect that.
 

DailyTech

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2004
Messages
886
most people get stuck in their beliefs, that a certain brand is the best and will always be. merc, porsche, BMW, IBM, Cisco, etc.. etc ...
then came the Tesla
 

Sapphiron

Expert Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2004
Messages
3,820
It's not a showdown, it's a massacre. Very little reason to buy Intel, apart from not being able to afford the first wave of Ryzen 5000 CPU's. Q1 next year will get more difficult for Intel, when AMD brings out lower tier 5000 CPUs.

Intel and AMD need to work hard to go up against Apple.

At least AMD has a roadmap that can compete with Apple on desktop. They are also working on ARM CPU's as well.

Intel has a tough road ahead. How well they do will depend on how much TSMC can manufacture for AMD and Apple. It's time Intel stops appointing finance people as CEOs and become an engineering company again.
 

Johnatan56

Honorary Master
Joined
Aug 23, 2013
Messages
30,961
Apple Mac Mini M1 - is a very capable desktop, this is what it looks like from the back:
View attachment 977422
Outperforms most of the CPU's in the article.
Not really that impressive though, everyone goes wow at the GPU and then you realize e.g. the RX560 is a rebranded RX460, which got cut down to 896 cores from 1024 (Nvidia did the same with the gt 1050), with the radeon card being on 14nm GF on a pretty old architecture, it's basically an 8 year old chip.
GF's 14nm density is about 31MTr/mm^2 while Apple's M1 is on TSMC 5nm is around 170. That they're "only" double the speed is quite a let down.

Sorry, always get sad when people say wow about the Apple M1 chip, it's just not that great if you actually look into it, a lot of the performance etc. comes from TSMC, it's mostly been a case of AMD and Nvidia not really competing in that space.
 

system32

Executive Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
5,648
Not really that impressive though, everyone goes wow at the GPU and then you realize e.g. the RX560 is a rebranded RX460, which got cut down to 896 cores from 1024 (Nvidia did the same with the gt 1050), with the radeon card being on 14nm GF on a pretty old architecture, it's basically an 8 year old chip.
GF's 14nm density is about 31MTr/mm^2 while Apple's M1 is on TSMC 5nm is around 170. That they're "only" double the speed is quite a let down.

Sorry, always get sad when people say wow about the Apple M1 chip, it's just not that great if you actually look into it, a lot of the performance etc. comes from TSMC, it's mostly been a case of AMD and Nvidia not really competing in that space.
"people say wow" - the link is to Anandtech - a very respected online hardware magazine and they do say "wow".
Ananadtech concludes with "The M1 undisputedly outperforms the core performance of everything Intel has to offer, and battles it with AMD’s new Zen3, winning some, losing some"

All the reviews I've read rate the M1 as very impressive, beating just about every x86-64 (Intel and AMD) CPU available on raw performance and with much lower power consumption.

The only downside is that the M1 is exclusive to Apple machines.
 
Last edited:

Barbarian Conan

Executive Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2017
Messages
5,080
"people say wow" - the link is to Anandtech - a very respected online hardware magazine and they do say "wow".
Ananadtech concludes with "The M1 undisputedly outperforms the core performance of everything Intel has to offer, and battles it with AMD’s new Zen3, winning some, losing some"

All the reviews I've read rate the M1 as very impressive, beating just about every x86-64 (Intel and AMD) CPU available on raw performance and with much lower power consumption.

The only downside is that the M1 is exclusive to Apple machines.

I have to agree, it is very impressive. Not in the sense that it absolutely destroys everything everywhere in every way, but its a low power ARM processor in it's first iteration, which trades blows with the best laptop processors. The most amazing thing to me is how well it runs x86 applications.

I'm curious about how they will scale to desktop processors and more real world tasks.
 

sdrawk

Expert Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
1,251
Interestingly, someone at work tried to tell me that Intel CPUs were still better for gaming. I was like, bruh, have you seen the benchmarks?

Amazing how many people cling to this old fashioned idea that Intel is the best. I think they will believe that for a while.
I know some people who just say "AMD might have better benchmarks but Intel are better quality"
Like WTF does that mean? Higher power consumption?
 

sdrawk

Expert Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
1,251
Apple ARM M1 comparison?
Best to compare that to other ARM SoC chips rather than against Intel and AMD in my opinion.

My reaction is thus: "Do you like being locked down to Apple products? You do? Well boy oh boy do I have a processor for you!" <insert Apple M1 here>

I suppose technically you could install the ARM version of ArchLinux/OpenSUSE/Ubuntu on the M1 Mac Mini and do a comparison that way vs x86_64 ArchLinux/OpenSUSE/Ubuntu on Intel and AMD but eish, too much effort. I'd leave that crap up to Phoronix.
 

system32

Executive Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2009
Messages
5,648
Not technically a desktop processor nor do we know if it'll play AC Valhalla or any x86 game.
What do you call the Apple Mac Mini M1?
Looks like, tastes like, smells like a desktop:
1608282055552.png

Mac Mini M1 will run software that's available:
  • macOS x86-x64 - via Rosetta2
  • macOS ARM64
  • iOS iPhone ARM64
  • iPad OS ARM64
Millions of apps, one major app that's not available is Fortnite.
 
Top