disolitude on 06 November 2012
| HappySqurriel said: Since the 90s AMD has primarily sold because of value not performance ... The top of the line AMD processors (from what I can tell) are generally priced along side the mid-line Core i5 processors, with the bulk of the high end AMD processors being roughly equal in price to a Core i3 processor. On top of that there are usually better savings on packaged CPU, Motherboards and memory on the AMD side of things than the Intel side. The net result of this is that you can build a fairly high end gaming rig for $750 using AMD; CPU+Motherboard+Memory for $350, $125 hard drive, $200 graphics card, $50 case, $25 DVD drive. |
AMD has beaten Intel a few times in raw performance (When Pentium III came out for example) but in general you are correct. What kept AMD popular is the gaming performance. They usually were 95% as good as Intel for 60-70% of the price. This changed with the FX series chips. The gaming performace is lagging at any price point...but the overall stuff is hit an miss.
I built an FX rig few months ago, just for the sake of seeing what all the fuss is about. And it's not a bad platform for pertty much anything you throw at it. However it isn't for enthusiasts. It gets hot, overclocking is limited and that top end performance just isn't there.
