OK, you are half right. When I built recently (NOTE: when I built),
mid-range processors were identical in price, talking AMD vs. Intel. Now,
the mid-range AMD processors are cheaper, no doubt about it. But, you do
not need a more expensive power supply for Intel. That is plain crap.
Actually it is a fact that P4 uses more power,
and it is a fact that power supplies are priced based on
capacity, on average. Maybe you get luck and find a sale,
or maybe you always buy more than you need, but that doesn't
change things... anyone can pay more for more.
If
you choose the RIGHT power supply, it will work for either chip. So there
is no price difference there.
Except that this "right power supply" has to be higher
capacity to support the P4! If you're not factoring for
this, you're either making the AMD buyer pay too much in the
cost comparison, or the P4 system has lower power margins.
You also don't need any extraordinary cooling
for a P4 system, either for processor or case.
Not extraordinary, simply MORE. Again, indisputable facts.
P4 creates more heat. It IS necesary to have more airflow
to remove that heat for the case to stay at same internal
ambient temp. Likewise if someone doesn't always want to
hear their heatsink, it takes a beefier heatsink to keep the
P4 at same temp.
All components can be
identical for either system (AMD or Intel), save for the obvious difference
of the CPU cooler.
So your justifying the price parity by making the margins on
other parts in the P4 system thinner, to offset the cost of
the P4. It doesn't work like that, you seem to be
describing a low-end P4 system with a disproportionately
priced CPU in it.
But the CPU cooler can be had cheaply for either chip.
If you don't care about noise, or again, if you're putting
together a low-end P4 box with an expensive CPU in it.
Also, there is less selection of Athlon64 mainboards, so better bargains can
be found in the P4 mainboards. (competition does that) So the extra money
you pay for an Intel CPU -can- be partially recovered from the money you
save buying the motherboard.
Better bargains if you buy junk P4 board. Again it seems
you're building junk low end but overspending on a CPU.
If I go to a popular website, say Newegg, and pick a popular
manufacturer, let's use Gigabyte. Their lowest cost, full
sized Athon 64/939 board is $85.
Now onto Gigabyte for Intel, lowest cost LGA or S478 in a
full sized board is $82/$82. Hmm, you're right it's $3
cheaper.
As for performance, I have done extensive research on AMD vs. Intel. I have
found that they are equal:
(and note I back up my conclusions with links to numbers posted by
well-regarded experts who agree with me)
Gaming: OpenGL: The Intel chips are much faster
Gaming: DX8: The AMD chips are faster, no doubt about it
Gaming: DX9: It's virtually a tie, as the AMD chips are two to three
TENTHS of a percentage point faster than Intel.
So on the gaming benchmarks, that's one win for Intel, one win for AMD and
one tie.
GAMING OVERALL: TIED
Hardly. Athlon64 is faster at most games.
Business Applications: Office Applications: Intel blows AMD away
Business Applications: Internet Content Creation: Intel blows AMD away
Business Applications: Overall: Intel blows AMD away
Video Encoding: This one is so lopsided, AMD should have thrown in the
towel before entering the ring. Intel wins by a landslide.
You mean only at specific apps. If someone wants those
performance gains they have to spend hundreds if not
thousands of dollars on new software. That $200 CPU isn't
so cheap anymore. Perhaps this is where you're going wrong,
not realizing that people and/or business don't generally
jump on the all-new-software bandwagon just because Tom's
Hardware et al benchmarked with it.
Audio Encoding: Again, Intel wins by a landslide
So how much do we add to the cost of the CPU for that
software? I don't recall ever hearing of anyone claiming to
use it.
Synthetic Benchmarks: (PC Mark 2004): Here, Intel blows AMD away on both
*CPU* and memory benchmarks
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040322/index.html
Why am I getting the feeling you're an Intel shill?
Of course apps with P4 optimizations in them will be faster
on P4, particularly synthetic ones.
This is the overall trend.P4 has been in the market longer,
MUCH longer. Apps, particularly when benchmarks use the
newest ones, paint a disproportionate picture. Even moreso
with AMD being the underdog, which do you think receives
priority when it comes to optimization development?
Granted, that is one argument FOR buying Intel, but only if
you pay the money for those new apps.
The following is an article on the Athlon 64 2800+. But more interesting
is,
the benchmarks included in the article are a GREAT comparison of the 3.2GHz
P4
processors with the Athlon64 3200+. In this article, these two processors
are
pretty evenly matched, with Intel being faster on some benchmarks, and AMD
being faster on others.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2038&p=1
Now lets look at what Sharky Extreme has to report in their article about
the
3.4GHz Prescott processor. This one has benchmarks that are a great
comparison
of the 3.4GHz Intel chips with the Athlon64 3400+. Here, you have to be
careful,
as Sharky doesn't organize their charts in order of fastest to slowest. And
on
some charts, LOWER scores are better. But if you read all the benchmarks,
you
will again notice that the two chips are pretty evenly matched, with AMD
faster
on some and Intel faster on others.
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/3261_3329681__1
Fairly even match according to charts, but remember that @
$200, it's the P4 3.0GHz or the Athlon 64 3400+ to be
compared... even if we ignore the other factors of heat and
power (and higher cost to run the P4 box but that diverges
too much from the main issue(s).
