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I really wanted to go AMD for my current build, but for full-stack Javascript development, or most things involving a single thread, Intel is often significantl

I really wanted to go AMD for my current build, but for full-stack Javascript development, or most things involving a single thread, Intel is often significantly faster. I would have gone with AMD anyway to support competition, but the requirement to add a graphics card for all their performance CPUs, which I don't want until I actually need one, always tilted things toward Intel.

vardump 8y ago
I think current AMD Zen offerings are faster single thread clock-for-clock for scalar code than anything Intel has to offer. OTOH, AVX2 peak rate is lower for Zen than recent Intel offerings. Javascript is very likely to be scalar bound, so I think you might currently find the best performance from AMD camp.
mrweasel 8y ago
For development box, is the single thread performance on the AMD system really something you'd notice? For a production system you'd ideally pick the CPU architecture that's best suited for your work load, but most of us just go with "what ever is currently under our hypervisor". In my mind you're doing something incredibly specialized if you notice the difference between AMD and Intel, or between current generation and last generation CPUs. Video encoding is really the only "mainstream" application I can think of. For Javascript development I doubt you would notice the difference, unless it's something highly specialised.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  It’s not imo. I mean theoretically my 2700X has slight worse performance per core (though not at the same price point, not fair to compare a 350 processor with a 600+) but it doesn’t matter when I have webpack running with 4 threads, type checking on a separate thread, a DB server and IntelliJ all running with not remotely a stutter.
  - arvinsim 8y ago
    Yes, I would venture that most developers would benefit more from more cores than raw CPU performance.
davidy123 8y ago
Just a blanket reply to replies; I wish I could find more developer specific benchmarks, the best I can find are around Javascript performance. There the GHz-comparable Intel chips are around 20% faster in common tasks than AMD. That is perceptually faster, and significantly faster in activities like builds. I've read a lot of discussions showing that many multi thread tasks have a single core element so it's ultimately faster unless the work really scales across cores. More cores are important, but the i7-8700 uses 65W, a single thread is faster than AMD and it has six cores / 12 threads. To get close performance but with 8 cores / 16 threads I'd have to get the 2700X, which is more expensive, plus a video card, which is much more wattage and in order to not get a throwaway video card much more expensive. There are also benchmarks that show AM4 has storage performance issues between 10 - 30%, which could affect complex workflows involving builds and containers. Still, I'm within the return period and trying to find a way to justify AMD, since my work is increasingly about containers. It's just such a huge timesink.

vardump 8y ago

I think current AMD Zen offerings are faster single thread clock-for-clock for scalar code than anything Intel has to offer. OTOH, AVX2 peak rate is lower for Zen than recent Intel offerings. Javascript is very likely to be scalar bound, so I think you might currently find the best performance from AMD camp.

mrweasel 8y ago

For development box, is the single thread performance on the AMD system really something you'd notice? For a production system you'd ideally pick the CPU architecture that's best suited for your work load, but most of us just go with "what ever is currently under our hypervisor". In my mind you're doing something incredibly specialized if you notice the difference between AMD and Intel, or between current generation and last generation CPUs. Video encoding is really the only "mainstream" application I can think of. For Javascript development I doubt you would notice the difference, unless it's something highly specialised.

noir_lord 8y ago
It’s not imo. I mean theoretically my 2700X has slight worse performance per core (though not at the same price point, not fair to compare a 350 processor with a 600+) but it doesn’t matter when I have webpack running with 4 threads, type checking on a separate thread, a DB server and IntelliJ all running with not remotely a stutter.
- arvinsim 8y ago
  Yes, I would venture that most developers would benefit more from more cores than raw CPU performance.

davidy123 8y ago

Just a blanket reply to replies; I wish I could find more developer specific benchmarks, the best I can find are around Javascript performance. There the GHz-comparable Intel chips are around 20% faster in common tasks than AMD. That is perceptually faster, and significantly faster in activities like builds. I've read a lot of discussions showing that many multi thread tasks have a single core element so it's ultimately faster unless the work really scales across cores. More cores are important, but the i7-8700 uses 65W, a single thread is faster than AMD and it has six cores / 12 threads. To get close performance but with 8 cores / 16 threads I'd have to get the 2700X, which is more expensive, plus a video card, which is much more wattage and in order to not get a throwaway video card much more expensive. There are also benchmarks that show AM4 has storage performance issues between 10 - 30%, which could affect complex workflows involving builds and containers. Still, I'm within the return period and trying to find a way to justify AMD, since my work is increasingly about containers. It's just such a huge timesink.