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> It seems I have been misinformed about Intel. Intel's latest desktop parts are fantastic. They're the undisputed performance champions, the best value for ga

> It seems I have been misinformed about Intel. Intel's latest desktop parts are fantastic. They're the undisputed performance champions, the best value for gaming and consumer CPUs, and AMD has yet to catch up. The mid-level parts are even relatively power efficient (for desktop parts). The pro-AMD anti-Intel commentary on the internet got completely out of control for a while. Intel is still very good at what they do, despite a few stumbles in recent history. It's just not fashionable to say good things about Intel right now.

qball 5y ago
>It's just not fashionable to say good things about Intel right now. Well, being single-handedly responsible for the nearly complete stagnation in processor performance for 10 out of the last 12 years probably has something to do with that. That said, Intel's products and their performance are indeed quite underrated especially once you consider that they're being generated on a relatively old process node; it will be interesting to see what kind of performance they'll be able to wring out at 5 or 7nm.
- cjbgkagh 5y ago
  I’ve always assumed that Intels terrible corporate culture was responsible for that stagnation (told to me by former Intel employees). What upset me was the pointlessness of having their employees suffer that culture and then the rest of the world suffer the lack of progress.
  - RachelF 5y ago
    ...that and the lack of any real competition Nothing focusses the mind like a real competitor.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  It would be interesting to see how x86 fares against ARM on the same node size.
- bushbaba 5y ago
  Something to recognize is that tsmc’s 5nm can do 171M/mm2 where-as intel’s 7nm can do 200-259M/mm2. M = millions of transitors
the_pwner224 5y ago
The Intel i9-12900k has a TDP of something like 240 watts (I don't remember the exact number). The AMD 5950x has a TDP of 105 watts. The 5950x does roughly 10-15% worse single core and 10% worse all-core. Intel is far behind AMD. Overclock the 5950 a bit and you're back to where the i9 is stock, but still with less power. (I haven't actually done any research into that last sentence, but that seems plausible) The AMD customer experience is also much better. I can upgrade - and soon will be upgrading - my 2 year old 3900x system to a 5950x. I don't have to buy a new motherboard like I would have had to with Intel. Plus my system has had PCIe 4.0 for a few years (which I have been utilizing with a super fast SSD) and also supports ECC RAM - Intel will price gouge you for those by making you go to their enterprise targeted CPUs/motherboards (to be fair, they do now support PCIe 4 on the i9). Plus Intel withholding ECC from their consumer CPUs - even the high end ones - is just a major dick move and hurts all of the people like us on HN who want to have good hardware. And considering all the scummy anticompetitive stuff Intel has done over the last few decades, I'd say it's better to go with AMD even if their chips had a slight perf/$ disadvantage compared to Intel (but they don't). Of course, I'm not saying AMD is amazing and wouldn't do evil stuff if they got the opportunity, like Intel had, but AMD is still the underdog for just a bit longer, and in duopolies it's generally good to support the underdog if it doesn't cost you much (and here it doesn't really cost anything).
- wmf 5y ago
  If you set Intel and AMD to the same power limit Intel will probably be faster. Intel just gave ECC back although you have to use a workstation chipset.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > The Intel i9-12900k has a TDP of something like 240 watts (I don't remember the exact number). > The AMD 5950x has a TDP of 105 watts. I have experience with both. The 5950X has significantly higher idle power consumption. It's a known downside of AMD parts. Unless you're running the CPUs at 100% all the time, the Intel platform will probably consume less power overall. I know it defies all of the headlines and such, but it's true. Idle power consumption matters more than peak power consumption for most of us whose CPUs sit idle most of the time. If power is a concern, you get the 12600K instead of the hot rodded 12900K. > Overclock the 5950 a bit and you're back to where the i9 is stock, but still with less power. (I haven't actually done any research into that last sentence, but that seems plausible) I can tell you haven't done any research because this isn't true. The 5950X doesn't overclock well at all. You can try to force higher all-core speeds with a lot of voltage, but it's going to become a power hungry monster of a CPU for very little gain. The Intel really is the superior CPU. > Plus Intel withholding ECC from their consumer CPUs - even the high end ones - Also incorrect. Look up the 12900K page and scroll down to "ECC Memory Supported": https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134599/intel-core-i912900k-processor-30m-cache-up-to-5-20-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134599/... This is what I was talking about when I said the pro-AMD anti-Intel rhetoric was out of control. It's like basic facts don't matter any more. People just want to hate Intel.
adfgadfgaery 5y ago
>The pro-AMD anti-Intel commentary on the internet got completely out of control for a while. Not really. It was entirely justified, but things have changed. Prior to Alder Lake Intel really was just plain worse than AMD in most respects. Processor vendors have leapfrogged each other many, many times before. A new architecture is supposed to beat everything else on the market. Recent years have been weird because Intel bungled 10nm at about the same time AMD bungled Bulldozer. We are getting back to normal.

qball 5y ago

>It's just not fashionable to say good things about Intel right now. Well, being single-handedly responsible for the nearly complete stagnation in processor performance for 10 out of the last 12 years probably has something to do with that. That said, Intel's products and their performance are indeed quite underrated especially once you consider that they're being generated on a relatively old process node; it will be interesting to see what kind of performance they'll be able to wring out at 5 or 7nm.

cjbgkagh 5y ago
I’ve always assumed that Intels terrible corporate culture was responsible for that stagnation (told to me by former Intel employees). What upset me was the pointlessness of having their employees suffer that culture and then the rest of the world suffer the lack of progress.
- RachelF 5y ago
  ...that and the lack of any real competition Nothing focusses the mind like a real competitor.
arvinsim 5y ago
It would be interesting to see how x86 fares against ARM on the same node size.
bushbaba 5y ago
Something to recognize is that tsmc’s 5nm can do 171M/mm2 where-as intel’s 7nm can do 200-259M/mm2. M = millions of transitors

the_pwner224 5y ago

The Intel i9-12900k has a TDP of something like 240 watts (I don't remember the exact number). The AMD 5950x has a TDP of 105 watts. The 5950x does roughly 10-15% worse single core and 10% worse all-core. Intel is far behind AMD. Overclock the 5950 a bit and you're back to where the i9 is stock, but still with less power. (I haven't actually done any research into that last sentence, but that seems plausible) The AMD customer experience is also much better. I can upgrade - and soon will be upgrading - my 2 year old 3900x system to a 5950x. I don't have to buy a new motherboard like I would have had to with Intel. Plus my system has had PCIe 4.0 for a few years (which I have been utilizing with a super fast SSD) and also supports ECC RAM - Intel will price gouge you for those by making you go to their enterprise targeted CPUs/motherboards (to be fair, they do now support PCIe 4 on the i9). Plus Intel withholding ECC from their consumer CPUs - even the high end ones - is just a major dick move and hurts all of the people like us on HN who want to have good hardware. And considering all the scummy anticompetitive stuff Intel has done over the last few decades, I'd say it's better to go with AMD even if their chips had a slight perf/$ disadvantage compared to Intel (but they don't). Of course, I'm not saying AMD is amazing and wouldn't do evil stuff if they got the opportunity, like Intel had, but AMD is still the underdog for just a bit longer, and in duopolies it's generally good to support the underdog if it doesn't cost you much (and here it doesn't really cost anything).

wmf 5y ago
If you set Intel and AMD to the same power limit Intel will probably be faster. Intel just gave ECC back although you have to use a workstation chipset.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> The Intel i9-12900k has a TDP of something like 240 watts (I don't remember the exact number). > The AMD 5950x has a TDP of 105 watts. I have experience with both. The 5950X has significantly higher idle power consumption. It's a known downside of AMD parts. Unless you're running the CPUs at 100% all the time, the Intel platform will probably consume less power overall. I know it defies all of the headlines and such, but it's true. Idle power consumption matters more than peak power consumption for most of us whose CPUs sit idle most of the time. If power is a concern, you get the 12600K instead of the hot rodded 12900K. > Overclock the 5950 a bit and you're back to where the i9 is stock, but still with less power. (I haven't actually done any research into that last sentence, but that seems plausible) I can tell you haven't done any research because this isn't true. The 5950X doesn't overclock well at all. You can try to force higher all-core speeds with a lot of voltage, but it's going to become a power hungry monster of a CPU for very little gain. The Intel really is the superior CPU. > Plus Intel withholding ECC from their consumer CPUs - even the high end ones - Also incorrect. Look up the 12900K page and scroll down to "ECC Memory Supported": https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134599/intel-core-i912900k-processor-30m-cache-up-to-5-20-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134599/... This is what I was talking about when I said the pro-AMD anti-Intel rhetoric was out of control. It's like basic facts don't matter any more. People just want to hate Intel.

adfgadfgaery 5y ago

>The pro-AMD anti-Intel commentary on the internet got completely out of control for a while. Not really. It was entirely justified, but things have changed. Prior to Alder Lake Intel really was just plain worse than AMD in most respects. Processor vendors have leapfrogged each other many, many times before. A new architecture is supposed to beat everything else on the market. Recent years have been weird because Intel bungled 10nm at about the same time AMD bungled Bulldozer. We are getting back to normal.