Midrange CPU Roundup: It's Time to Buy
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 28, 2007 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
Looking at the platform as a whole, AMD has a much better integrated graphics story. The AMD 690G chipset is every bit as stable and reliable in our experience as Intel's offerings, all while offering far superior graphics performance at competitive prices. In our opinion however, if you really want to game with a machine built on one of these platforms you're far better off picking up a cheap graphics card rather than trying to rely on mediocre integrated graphics.
Both AMD and Intel have enough horsepower with their integrated graphics solutions to drive Windows Vista's Aero interface, so if you're not going to be gaming then either integrated graphics solutions is more than enough. Windows and animations did seem to render more smoothly on the Intel platform but we're not sure if that's a driver, GPU, or CPU advantage.
AMD and Intel are unbelievably close when it comes to mainstream CPU performance - far closer than we expected. There are a couple of exceptions, however. DivX encoding in particular is extremely strong on Intel CPUs where AMD just can't compete these days.
If you're choosing between the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ and 4800+ definitely go for the latter. The performance difference is so small that we don't even understand why AMD has both speed grades. At the 2.5GHz+ clock speeds we're talking about, 100MHz differences don't amount to a significant enough performance difference to justify any increase in cost.
The Athlon X2 BE-2350 does reduce power consumption, but at a noticeable increase to cost. However, if you're building an AMD system, we'd recommend the BE-2350 over the Athlon 64 X2 4000+ given the reduction in power consumption. Power costs over the life of the system should eventually negate the $18 price penalty.
Although AMD remains very competitive in the vast majority of benchmarks, given the virtual price parity Intel's performance advantages in some tests make the Core 2 or Pentium Dual-Core a more sensible buy. Both the Core 2 Duo E4500 and Pentium E2160 are great choices, as are their lower clocked variants; it really boils down to price point.
Once you take overclocking into account though, it's tough to beat Intel's Pentium Dual-Core lineup. With 65%+ overclocks - with little effort and using stock cooling - the Pentium E2140 and E2160 are easily the best buys on the market today. If you're absolutely opposed to overclocking, then the AMD/Intel question is a tossup, but if you've got no problems pushing clocks then Intel is the clear choice at all price points.
Where does the future lie?
Performance between these two companies is quite close already in the mainstream segment but what about when Phenom and Penryn reach these affordable price points?
One of the biggest gaps we saw in the performance comparison is DivX performance. If we look at our Phenom Preview, it looks like Phenom will improve DivX encoding performance by around 11% at the same clock speed, which would be enough for AMD to be more than competitive; unfortunately, Penryn will also improve DivX performance by around 10% (and upcoming SSE4 optimizations could increase that figure dramatically).
It's really a question of whether Penryn or Phenom will reach these lower price points first, but we have a feeling that both may make it down here at about the same time. If that's true then it looks like although AMD and Intel will remain competitive in the future, Intel will hold the slight edge just as it does today.
We honestly don't expect Phenom/Penryn to really change the picture much from the overclocker's perspective either. While we're hearing rumors that Phenom will clock higher than K8, Penryn will be on a cooler running 45nm process, which should allow for even higher clock speeds (read: even higher overclocks). As long as competition stays reasonably tight, though, the real winner isn't going to be Intel or AMD: it's going to be the end-users. At least we won't have to feel too guilty about indulging our computer addictions.
Looking at the platform as a whole, AMD has a much better integrated graphics story. The AMD 690G chipset is every bit as stable and reliable in our experience as Intel's offerings, all while offering far superior graphics performance at competitive prices. In our opinion however, if you really want to game with a machine built on one of these platforms you're far better off picking up a cheap graphics card rather than trying to rely on mediocre integrated graphics.
Both AMD and Intel have enough horsepower with their integrated graphics solutions to drive Windows Vista's Aero interface, so if you're not going to be gaming then either integrated graphics solutions is more than enough. Windows and animations did seem to render more smoothly on the Intel platform but we're not sure if that's a driver, GPU, or CPU advantage.
AMD and Intel are unbelievably close when it comes to mainstream CPU performance - far closer than we expected. There are a couple of exceptions, however. DivX encoding in particular is extremely strong on Intel CPUs where AMD just can't compete these days.
If you're choosing between the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ and 4800+ definitely go for the latter. The performance difference is so small that we don't even understand why AMD has both speed grades. At the 2.5GHz+ clock speeds we're talking about, 100MHz differences don't amount to a significant enough performance difference to justify any increase in cost.
The Athlon X2 BE-2350 does reduce power consumption, but at a noticeable increase to cost. However, if you're building an AMD system, we'd recommend the BE-2350 over the Athlon 64 X2 4000+ given the reduction in power consumption. Power costs over the life of the system should eventually negate the $18 price penalty.
Although AMD remains very competitive in the vast majority of benchmarks, given the virtual price parity Intel's performance advantages in some tests make the Core 2 or Pentium Dual-Core a more sensible buy. Both the Core 2 Duo E4500 and Pentium E2160 are great choices, as are their lower clocked variants; it really boils down to price point.
Once you take overclocking into account though, it's tough to beat Intel's Pentium Dual-Core lineup. With 65%+ overclocks - with little effort and using stock cooling - the Pentium E2140 and E2160 are easily the best buys on the market today. If you're absolutely opposed to overclocking, then the AMD/Intel question is a tossup, but if you've got no problems pushing clocks then Intel is the clear choice at all price points.
Where does the future lie?
Performance between these two companies is quite close already in the mainstream segment but what about when Phenom and Penryn reach these affordable price points?
One of the biggest gaps we saw in the performance comparison is DivX performance. If we look at our Phenom Preview, it looks like Phenom will improve DivX encoding performance by around 11% at the same clock speed, which would be enough for AMD to be more than competitive; unfortunately, Penryn will also improve DivX performance by around 10% (and upcoming SSE4 optimizations could increase that figure dramatically).
It's really a question of whether Penryn or Phenom will reach these lower price points first, but we have a feeling that both may make it down here at about the same time. If that's true then it looks like although AMD and Intel will remain competitive in the future, Intel will hold the slight edge just as it does today.
We honestly don't expect Phenom/Penryn to really change the picture much from the overclocker's perspective either. While we're hearing rumors that Phenom will clock higher than K8, Penryn will be on a cooler running 45nm process, which should allow for even higher clock speeds (read: even higher overclocks). As long as competition stays reasonably tight, though, the real winner isn't going to be Intel or AMD: it's going to be the end-users. At least we won't have to feel too guilty about indulging our computer addictions.
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sprockkets - Friday, September 28, 2007 - link
how is it that on page 8 on the graph of the productivity score, that the 2.5ghz athlon scores better than the 2.6?sprockkets - Friday, September 28, 2007 - link
I may not consider Biostar a good brand in the past, but their TForce boards for the AMD690G and for the 7025 are excellent. And they have at least solid caps for where they matter most, near the cpu. Those are most likely to blow up.Just like the other article, if you want DVI or even HDMI, your motherboard from the Intel camp will cost $120. The worst part is the one from Gigabyte which has HDMI has only a 4x pci-e slot with a physical 16x slot. Good going!
I'll choose to save $40. But if nVidia ever gets their chipsets for Intel out anytime soon, maybe then. When you use SuSE linux having nvidia as your video card greatly simplifies things.
I'll second that as well: The Abit 6150 board with that heatpipe and Rubycon caps is awesome.
oreo81 - Friday, September 28, 2007 - link
Whats the deal with all of the prices slanted in Intel's favor?Prices direct from Newegg:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2.6GHz) $109.99 Anand's price $125 (+ $15)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.5GHz) $99.99 Anand's price $115 (+ $15)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (2.3GHz) $84.99 Anand's price $94 (+ $9)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.1GHz) $74.00 (no 4000+) Anand's price $73
AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 (2.1GHz) $86.00 Anand's price $91 (+ $5)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 (2.2GHz) $143.99 Anand's price $133 (- $11)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 (2.0GHz) $124.99 Anand's price $113 (- $12)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2160 (1.8GHz) $84.99 Anand's price $74 (- $11)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140 (1.6GHz) $74.99 Anand's price $64 (- $11)
Honestly, how can you compare low priced processors when the prices are obviously slanted in Intel's favor. When comparing the X2 5000+ to the E4500 (As the article does), there is a $34 price difference which could buy you a X2 5600+. Now don't go off about how this is one retailers prices bull crap, take a look around, the prices might be a little different, but the outcome is the same. Please Anandtech, give us a non biased processor match up.
wdb1966 - Sunday, September 30, 2007 - link
Better AMD motherboard choices could have been made too.Gigabyte's MA69GM-S2H and Abit's NF-M2 nView would have been the best and obvious choices...makes you wonder, eh?
FrankThoughts - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
How about we try for even more fair prices, eh? Newegg is just one source. Searching Google products I find:AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2.6GHz) $109.99 @ Newegg (+$15 vs. AT)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.5GHz) $99.99 @ Newegg (+$15 vs. AT)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (2.3GHz) $84.99 @ Newegg (+$9 vs. AT)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (2.0GHz) $68.99 @ eWiz (+$4 vs. AT)
AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 (2.1GHz) $86.00 @ Newegg (+$5 vs. AT)
Average difference: +$9 extra cost on AT's quoted price
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (2.33GHz) $170.99 @ Newegg
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 (2.2GHz) $125.00 @ eWiz (-$8 vs. AT)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 (2.0GHz) $123.99 @ xPCgear (+$11 vs. AT)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2160 (1.8GHz) $79.57 @ Provantage (+$6 vs. AT)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140 (1.6GHz) $65.79 @ eWiz (+$2 vs. AT)
Average difference: ~$3 savings on AT's quoted price
Now while that might be unfair, let's consider that AT probably just looked at Intel and AMD prices rather than scouring the 'net to see what you might actually pay. Take that into account, and the price discrepancies aren't at all surprising. Demand for the Intel chips is a LOT higher than AMD parts, and thus many are actually selling at prices slightly higher than expected. On the AMD side, demand is going to be very low, especially on the higher priced parts, and to compensate the retailers have to slash prices.
The bottom line doesn't change in the article, I don't think. If you're trying to save money, would you build someone a $66 E2140 system or a $69 X2 4000+? Or maybe that should be a $80 E2160 vs. the $85 4400+? Either way, I know which I would generally recommend. But there's a catch, of course: decent AMD platform motherboards are generally $20 cheaper as well.
If you're overclocking -AT ALL-, there's no reason to even glance at AMD right now. Putting on the best HSF in the world isn't going to help AMD reach much higher, perhaps 2.8GHz if you're lucky. But $50 on cooling for a $80 CPU? Get real! You'd be looking at a Core 2 long before you reached that point (I hope, at least).
Then the other concern is motherboards. Well, first, some of these boards (i.e. abit NF-M2 someone mentioned) is out of stock many places, and it's probably not being produced anymore. Others simply didn't meet their requirements, and I'm guessing Anand didn't want to try and review 20 possible motherboards prior to running benches. I don't really fault him for picking something that at least *worked*. The ASUS P5K-V might be more expensive, but it doesn't look like the Biostar G33 equivalent would have changed results much.
Basically, the article gives a reasonable representation of the state of the CPU market in my experience. Prices are off a bit, but so what? I still wouldn't bother with an AMD CPU in most desktops right now. It's just not enough of a price benefit. They're not bad, but they're also not great either. Stock performance is about equal in terms of price, once everything is taken into account.
TheJian - Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - link
You're totally off. Lets take a look at your pricing again:Provantage, Ewiz and xPCgear you quote DO NOT INCLUDE SHIPPING! I checked all and they are all $8! Guess we can toss all those out eh? They all end up ABOVE Newegg and newegg is 3 day shipping (FREE). Oh, BTW your provantage price doesn't even include a FAN! It's a freaking OEM price...ROFL.
So lets go back to the newegg pricing:
Whats the deal with all of the prices slanted in Intel's favor?
Prices direct from Newegg:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2.6GHz) $109.99 Anand's price $125 (+ $15)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.5GHz) $99.99 Anand's price $115 (+ $15)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (2.3GHz) $84.99 Anand's price $94 (+ $9)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.1GHz) $74.00 (no 4000+) Anand's price $73
AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 (2.1GHz) $86.00 Anand's price $91 (+ $5)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 (2.2GHz) $143.99 Anand's price $133 (- $11)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 (2.0GHz) $124.99 Anand's price $113 (- $12)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2160 (1.8GHz) $84.99 Anand's price $74 (- $11)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140 (1.6GHz) $74.99 Anand's price $64 (- $11)
Looking at this AGAIN we see you should be comparing the 2.3ghz AMD to the 1.8ghz Intel (4400+ vs. E2160). I used these because we have exact pricing match here. Extrapolate as you desire for others. But you get the point. If we look at anand's benchmarks you can clearly see the 2.3ghz AMD would come out on top on ALMOST all benchmarks. A quick check shows the 4200+ at 2.2ghz wins nearly every benchmark in anand's tests vs the E2160 at 1.8ghz...I.E. another 100mhz would just make it even better for AMD likely giving them a victory across the board...NOT LOSING constantly.
Taking another look at say the 5200/5000+ (brisbane or winsor...both $119/124) vs. Intel's E4400 (which is currently $129 not $125 quoted above..pricing changed a bit in a bad way so this is even more towards AMD) again all from newegg today: We see in Anandtech's article that performance is totally AMD in gaming (or one tie), slightly Intel in sysmark and a wash in media encoding depending on benchmark used (divx=Intel WMP9=AMD Quicktime=AMD Itunes=Intel). 3D rendering is 3 for AMD and 2 for Intel. Again a totally close race here slightly leaning towards AMD with more victories on their side. If you use correct pricing this article would come out a wash at best and not an Intel landslide as the article implies!
I'm not even going to get into the board choices as the other guy hit it on the head already. HOWEVER, the entire crux of this article is PRICING. If you're starting off with completely slanted pricing in favor of Intel Anand's article is totally biased from the get go and utterly useless. I have no idea where he got his pricing but considering they quote newegg all the time in articles it seems fishy at best that they weren't used here. On top of that the perfect match for Intel's 4400 price was the 2.3ghz AMD and it's suspiciously missing from benchmarks. Granted it's because of pricing disparity if you believe the article, however I think I just blew that out of the water. Are we comparing PRICING I can buy or something bought in lots of a thousand which NONE of us finds useful? Nobody could argue about newegg pricing which is precisely why the other poster used them. EVERYBODY here knows who they are. I've never even heard of 2 of the places you quoted (only ewiz)...LOL.
Do some homework before you spout this crap. Unlike you said this totally changes the article (as the previous poster stated...It's a HUGE difference). And you called him a fanboy?...LOL. "Prices are off a bit, but so what?"...ROFLMAO. Pricing is the whole point of this article, correct? Just about the only point I agree with you on is overclocking (which very few people do)...Oh and AMD boards are cheaper (you said $20...and thats about right...so AMD comes out even better then eh?). If you consider the $20 you said AMD boards save and put that $20 in the video card AMD blows Intel away for gaming. Which most of us use our pc's for eh? Word has all day to wait on you but in gaming the card matters more than cpu in 90% of the games.
Considering 95% of the world doesn't overclock the above statements mean a lot. Having said that I bought a core2 4300 (1.8ghz) and run it at 3ghz on air. Only because I don't need more although it's cold and the fan never goes hot (even in TX...LOL). I have water i need to re-install (koolance) but since it's so cool I'll wait until I need above 3ghz before even bothering running water again in my system. Note I just upgraded from an X2 3800+ which I ran at 2.6ghz. :) Straight out of the box on both, didn't bother going past the bios for either. Boot, OC, prime95 x 2. HEHE. I really loved my X2 out of the box when I got it $350 for a cpu worth over $1000 at the time. I love my core2 also, $126 for a cpu worth $280 at the time and more if you consider it isn't even close to being tapped out on my DS3R gigabyte board.
By the way Anand, you blew the watercooling article too. If you're going to be comparing expensive air and calling water crap you should at least compare air to a DECENT water cooler. Try a Koolance before calling water expensive and crappy under $300. I beg to differ and my Koolance is quiet also (300w waterblock from Koolance used)! What did you expect when you compare the best air coolers to the crappiest (is that a word?) watercooling out there? Which IMHO totally defeats the purpose of water to begin with...ROFL. Your two choices couldn't even cut a decent overclock. Bah...For most though, AIR is far better these days. But at $250 you can build way better (as stated in the comments on that article) or just buy a Koolance and get what watercooling was designed for! I hope you rewrite both articles as they should just be tossed out in their current form. Sorry about grammer or spelling it's 3am... :)
wdb1966 - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
The above pricing seems to be right from Newegg which I'm sure you're familiar with, no need to scour the net to cherry-pick prices.
The blatant pro-Intel pricing (as well as poor hardware choices) cast doubt on the validity of the review as a whole.
Sorry, but Anand blew it on this one.
FrankThoughts - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
Show me one point in the conclusion that's truly wrong and I might consider your post valid. As it stands, you're just another whiny AMD fanboi that's sad to see the truth. Hell, Anand was nicer than I would be, but then I overclock. Toss that out, and what do you get?First, you get a $170 CPU that beats the tar out of EVERY AMD CPU on the market. Yeah, that's great. Second, you get what amounts to a tie at most other price points. For less than $25 difference, what are you going to take? AMD? That's okay, I suppose, but the only interesting AMD chips that I see right now are the BE-23xx parts. The BE-2350 matches up against the E2160, and it's a pretty fair battle as long as you discount overclocking. Personally, I'd still take the E2160, though, since it delivers nearly the same performance and power characteristics as the BE-2350 (faster but slightly more power hungry) and it still has some killer overclocking.
Until AMD actually gets Phenom out - and manages to compete on performance and power requirements (if it can) - the only thing AMD has going for it is price. Even that isn't really "going" for it, though, since Intel's Pentium Dual-Core line is very nearly the same and costs less to produce. AMD needs to get prices up, but unless they can become vastly superior they will be unable to do so. The writing, unfortunately, is on the wall: Welcome back to the value bin, AMD.
K7 and K8 were a good run, but only until Intel released the Core architecture. K10 might be able to make this into a rematch of K7 vs. Pentium III, but that's about as close as I see it getting. Hopefully we don't see a return to the pre-K7 days. And for the record: K6, K6-II, and K6-II+/K6-III/K6-III+ were all completely lousy chips, I'm sorry to say. Anyone that says otherwise has their head rammed to far up AMD's hole to breathe, let alone think properly.
wdb1966 - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
Thats my point, Anand got the prices wrong as well as the hardware used to test with, therefore the above statement is inaccurate.
Do the Intel chips OC easier, yes absolutely...can AMD's also OC very well, yes given the right hardware.
FrankThoughts - Monday, October 1, 2007 - link
Maybe it's just me, but my AMD overclocking results have been pretty lousy. X2 3800+... maxes out at around 2.6 GHz without exotic (at least very expensive air) cooling. I've got a 4400+ that just won't cooperate - on a 590 SLI board no less - when it comes to bumping up the clocks. That even has a Scythe Ninja on it. Maybe it's the board (Foxconn), or maybe claims of "easy 50% OC" on AMD are coming from people that put way more effort into it than me. My E4400, on the other hand, is running happily at 3.0 GHz with a $35 cooler in a Gigabyte DS3 board.The pricing stuff I already discussed. BE-2350 is the best AMD chip in this bracket, in my view. I run my systems 24/7 for the most part, often at pretty high loads (video transcoding of TV shows recorded by my PVR). So in one year, a 20W difference would pay for any price difference. But that's only when compared against AMD's own chips. The Core 2 Duo outperforms AMD quite easily in my video transcoding, making any minor power difference a moot point. (And that's before overclocking, which bumped the power use of my C2D 4400 up about 30W but made it over 50% faster.) My AMD system couldn't even keep up with the movie recording, as it was taking four hours to transcode a one hour show.
So I say the BE-2350 is the best AMD chip for budget right now. That goes up against the Core 2 E2160, and in overall benches the E2160 wins.
All components being equal, what you need to look at is mobo and CPU cost. Anand could have done more there, as I think AMD has a very strong case to make in that segment. However, I don't know that the mobo choices were bad in terms of performance. I'd pick AMD for features if all you need is a basic HTPC (without transcoding a ton of stuff), because HDMI is available on a lot more decent boards. G33 is junk, and pretty much requires a seperate GPU. The best HTPC boards for Intel right now sport an AMD chipset! NVIDIA may change that shortly, of course.
What I'm getting at is that people seem to be focusing on the trees (one review) and complaining that it doesn't paint a clear picture of the entire forest. Well, the conclusion did just that for me. It mentioned how AMD has a MUCH more compelling IGP solution right now, but when it comes to the CPUs Intel is still ahead. I agree with that fully, which means that if I'm in the market for an IGP setup, I still seriously look at AMD.
Outside of IGP, there aren't many markets where I'd look at them right now. If I add a discrete GPU for $100-$125 (HD 2600 or GF 8600 GT), I can surely spend a bit more on the CPU. And when I start looking at the $130-$170 CPUs (which are still quite reasonble IMO), suddenly AMD gets trounced.
I guess I cut Anand and company a lot of slack, because there's a ton of stuff to look at for articles. You guys want the whole pie, and I'm happy with a small slice. Add the slices up, and you eventually get the whole anyway. Seriously, we're bitching and moaning about a $10-$15 discrepancy! On a PC that's still likely to cost $500-$750 before all is said and done. You want a budget burner sub-$500 PC? I think AMD has a very compelling case to be made (and the article seems to support this - at least when combined with a few of the micro ATX reviews). As soon as you hit $600, it gets a lot less clear, and by $750 I really see nothing AMD has that would entice me. Yet.