The Clever Geek

Ever since I replaced an old Pentium 2 Celeron with a Athlon CPU I've become a AMD fanboy and haven't looked back at Intel since. Now granted because of that fact this little article may be biased, but what opinion isn't?

Lately it seems like AMD has been one step behind Intel in the CPU market. Intel released their dual core processor first, giving consumers something new and exciting. AMD didn't back down just yet, they soon released their AM2 X2 dual core processors which blew away the competition sending Intel a message that they didn't have the market to themselves. Intel shortly returned fire with their Core 2 Duo processor which spanked AMD's X2 in performance. So again AMD was a step behind, and could only respond in slashing prices. Few years go by and Intel releases their Core 2 Quad and again they were at the head of the game. Finally after a long wait AMD releases their Phenom processor, their quad core CPU. However it didn't quite stand up against Intel's processor as much as I'd hoped.

The Phenom has great potential on a multi-core scale, but AMD still has a alot of work ahead of them. So for now Intel wins the power cake in this battle, but the war isn't over yet. Though AMD's repeatitive strategy of slashing prices to compete with higher performance competitors won't keep them alive forever. Even their newly aquired child company ATI is struggling with Nvidia in the graphics market (granted the release of their 3800 series was a huge jump bringing them back into the graphics game). Then again highest performance doesn't mean best option. Intel's "Extreme" series of CPUs are ridiculously expensive, ranging from $1100 and up! I can easily build a very decent machine (with an AMD processor of course) for that. I don't even know who would even need a processor that powerful. There isn't software that I know of that the day to day consumer and end-user would use (even if you were a gamer) that would need that kind of performance from a CPU. On top of that you'd need some pretty impressive hardware to harness the full potential of one of those processors. Who needs a 400+ frame rate in their game, when you can get 100-200 for 1/8th the cost (whether a non-Extreme Intel, or a AMD). The "Extreme" series obviously targets the people who like to show off tehir ep33n and just have loads of cash lying around as the performance increase does not justify the large cost.

Phenom does put AMD back into the CPU war, but not by much. Intel's processors still stack higher in benchmark tests against the Phenom. Not only that, but Intel has the ridiculous "Extreme" series of quad core processors which are even more powerful. This leaves many with the question which processor do I choose? Well for me it's still AMD. I'll purchase a slower slightly cheaper Phenom over a Intel Core 2 Quad any day. Intel's celeron processor has near forever ruined their ability for me to put faith in them ever again. However if I wanted to show off my ep33n a Phenom would not be the way to go. It really all comes down to the other hardware in your machine. Your processor can only go so far all by it's lonesome. Without the proper motherboard, RAM, and even a GPU your processor won't reach full potential.

So that still leaves the question of, "Which processor is right for me?". Well there are a number of options to consider, here's a few you may take into account:

• The brand or manufacturer (my personal one and only deciding factor), which normally would be Intel or AMD
• What does your computer need to be able to do for you, what do you expect it being capable of doing?
• How big your pocket book is - which you can also factor in the cost of necessary components such as Motherboard, RAM, etc... A more powerful processor usually means more expensive, which in hand could mean more expensive components.

AMD offers decent processors at a decent price, and as of late Intel does as well. Intel also has the powerhouse expensive processors while AMD doesn't. If you're still having trouble deciding between processors try deciding on other components. If your chipset is AMD, you should probably go with a AMD processor and even add a ATI card into the mix (also known as AMD's Spider - All AMD all the time). Or maybe you like Nvidia chipsets, which works well with SLI and Nvidia cards as well as Intel Chipsets, and tend to favor Intel Processors (but can also work with AMD). Overall AMD seems to be for the shopper who doesn't need a top of the line blow you out of the water system and would like to save as much as possible, where Intel you can get the rocket blast power, but you definitely have to pay for it.