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I have two questions for people at intel and the peanut gallery - If I want a high performance CPU that's not "workstation" class: why should I buy an i7 over

I have two questions for people at intel and the peanut gallery - If I want a high performance CPU that's not "workstation" class: why should I buy an i7 over a 3700x or 3800x? - How meaningful is the "intel inside" brand when IT/GIS departments buy machines in bulk for their enterprise users?

core-questions 7y ago
Intel Inside is not that important anymore unless you have a big Intel AMT architecture for handling deployments / etc. What is more important for IT depts is pricing, shipping timelines, available configurations, enterprise deployment options, etc. There's no reason these can't all be at-par with AMD-based machines, but because of Intel's deep relationships with the vendors, sometimes you simply can't get their AMD machines at a price point that makes sense. Consider the fact that desktop processing performance was good enough 8+ years ago for anything most office workers need to do now; what IT wants in many industries is cost-effective machines that are easy to manage. The component brands inside don't matter that much.
NicoJuicy 7y ago
I think why you want to buy a Intel now is: - Laptop ( battery life is better on Intel CPU's), but AMD has this covered next Q. - Intel NUC ( it's very practical ) - For Single core optimized applications ( eg. Some games) when you don't care about the total price at all. Intel's one core performance was better and support in games is lacking for a lot of cores. I think next Ryzen will handle this. - When AMD is sold out completely and you need a CPU now :p Other than that, i think it's all AMD (eg. ECC memory, price, performance and buying the "underdog" ). Except if someone just wants to pay the highest price just for show, then you could still buy an Intel. Intel inside is an OEM partnership, that i hope AMD will break :) .
- lazylizard 7y ago
  Avx512
- haberman 7y ago
  When I was building a PC last December, I considered AMD until I saw that https://github.com/mozilla/rr https://github.com/mozilla/rr requires an Intel processor. > rr currently requires an Intel CPU with Nehalem (2010) or later microarchitecture. I don't even use rr at the moment, but I hate the idea of building a monster machine only to find that I'm left out of some cutting-edge technology because I went off-brand.
  - oblio 7y ago
    I find it kind of funny that 5 (?) decades of Intel - AMD competition still haven't persuaded you to not call AMD "off-brand". It's a bit like calling Pepsi "off-brand", in my opinion :-)
    - haberman 7y ago
      It's got nothing to do with how long they've been competing, it's got to do with dominance and quality. If AMD overtakes Intel in price/performance, capability, and market share in 10 years (and I think it's totally possible) then I would call Intel off-brand. If I buy a CPU from company A for the purpose of running programs, but there are some useful programs it cannot run (like rr), not because of some anti-competitive proprietary nonsense by their rival B but rather because of some genuine capability that A lacks, then I call A off-brand.
  - skissane 7y ago
    They have been working on AMD support, see for example: https://github.com/mozilla/rr/issues/2034 https://github.com/mozilla/rr/issues/2034 The problem is that AMD CPUs have lots of bugs in their performance counter implementation. Intel CPUs don't have those bugs. With newer generations of AMD CPUs, AMD has fixed some of these bugs, but others remain. I wonder why AMD hasn't stepped up to get involved in this project. There might be nothing that can be done with currently shipping silicon, but at least AMD could make sure that on their future silicon it all works. Fixing their performance counter bugs would likely benefit other projects as well.
    - 7y ago

core-questions 7y ago

Intel Inside is not that important anymore unless you have a big Intel AMT architecture for handling deployments / etc. What is more important for IT depts is pricing, shipping timelines, available configurations, enterprise deployment options, etc. There's no reason these can't all be at-par with AMD-based machines, but because of Intel's deep relationships with the vendors, sometimes you simply can't get their AMD machines at a price point that makes sense. Consider the fact that desktop processing performance was good enough 8+ years ago for anything most office workers need to do now; what IT wants in many industries is cost-effective machines that are easy to manage. The component brands inside don't matter that much.

NicoJuicy 7y ago

I think why you want to buy a Intel now is: - Laptop ( battery life is better on Intel CPU's), but AMD has this covered next Q. - Intel NUC ( it's very practical ) - For Single core optimized applications ( eg. Some games) when you don't care about the total price at all. Intel's one core performance was better and support in games is lacking for a lot of cores. I think next Ryzen will handle this. - When AMD is sold out completely and you need a CPU now :p Other than that, i think it's all AMD (eg. ECC memory, price, performance and buying the "underdog" ). Except if someone just wants to pay the highest price just for show, then you could still buy an Intel. Intel inside is an OEM partnership, that i hope AMD will break :) .

lazylizard 7y ago
Avx512
haberman 7y ago
When I was building a PC last December, I considered AMD until I saw that https://github.com/mozilla/rr https://github.com/mozilla/rr requires an Intel processor. > rr currently requires an Intel CPU with Nehalem (2010) or later microarchitecture. I don't even use rr at the moment, but I hate the idea of building a monster machine only to find that I'm left out of some cutting-edge technology because I went off-brand.
- oblio 7y ago
  I find it kind of funny that 5 (?) decades of Intel - AMD competition still haven't persuaded you to not call AMD "off-brand". It's a bit like calling Pepsi "off-brand", in my opinion :-)
  - haberman 7y ago
    It's got nothing to do with how long they've been competing, it's got to do with dominance and quality. If AMD overtakes Intel in price/performance, capability, and market share in 10 years (and I think it's totally possible) then I would call Intel off-brand. If I buy a CPU from company A for the purpose of running programs, but there are some useful programs it cannot run (like rr), not because of some anti-competitive proprietary nonsense by their rival B but rather because of some genuine capability that A lacks, then I call A off-brand.
- skissane 7y ago
  They have been working on AMD support, see for example: https://github.com/mozilla/rr/issues/2034 https://github.com/mozilla/rr/issues/2034 The problem is that AMD CPUs have lots of bugs in their performance counter implementation. Intel CPUs don't have those bugs. With newer generations of AMD CPUs, AMD has fixed some of these bugs, but others remain. I wonder why AMD hasn't stepped up to get involved in this project. There might be nothing that can be done with currently shipping silicon, but at least AMD could make sure that on their future silicon it all works. Fixing their performance counter bugs would likely benefit other projects as well.
  - 7y ago