Core i5 or i7?

[em99010pepe]

Originally Posted by joblack

So, what does that prove exactly? In a normal case Apple has some pretty cheap (in the sense of performance and price worthiness) cpu included. Exceptions are in the high price area Macs.

Why they choose Intel instead of an AMD?

Originally Posted by joblack

No doubt that the Intel 980x Hex Core from Intel is faster but for what price? At least 800 Euro and the mainboard is expensive.

Totally agree. Here it cost more than 1000 Euros.

Originally Posted by joblack

I own a Q6600 as well and I'm thinking about upgrading to the 2,8 GHz Hex Core from AMD. No way I will spend at least 5 times that much money for an Intel Hex Core with a mainboard.

Did you think about a Q9650 instead of an AMD?

Originally Posted by joblack

With exception of those who really need it (heavy programmers) I call the Intel Hex Core price a tax for 'idiots who are bad in math' ;=).

And don't forget, Mr. Prime95 has and wants to improve the AMD64 processor optimization.

I hope he does improve.

[em99010pepe]

Let's put it in this way.
Running both processors the same type of work 24/7 during a year, like LLR. Which one, i7 980X vs AMD 1090T, will cost you less and make more work? Think about the investment, the energy consumed by both, the price of energy....

[sdbardwick]

Much conjecture in this thread but little information.
Here's some data to consider. (Google spreadsheet)

[joblack]

Originally Posted by em99010pepe

Let's put it in this way.
Running both processors the same type of work 24/7 during a year, like LLR. Which one, i7 980X vs AMD 1090T, will cost you less and make more work? Think about the investment, the energy consumed by both, the price of energy....

The difference will be around 1-3 Euro / month (actual power prices and the performance surplus for the 980x).

Let's assume it's 3 Euro difference so you would have to wait 750 Euro / 3 Euro = 250 months or 20,8 years to get even. And you have no interest included in your saved money for the AMD.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by em99010pepe

Why they choose Intel instead of an AMD?

Who knows. Maybe Intel gave a special rebate (wouldn't be the first time) or Steve Jobs doesn't like the CEO of AMD, ... the point is we don't know the reason but you can't take Apple's decision for Intel cpus as an argument for their superiority.

Originally Posted by em99010pepe

Did you think about a Q9650 instead of an AMD?

No, the Q6600 and Q9650 aren't 'real' quad cores. They are two double cores glued together (with all the consequences like suboptimal memory controller). Don't get me wrong, at the time I bought it (almost 4 years ago) they were state of the art and price worthy for the performance. That point has changed.

The 6 Core AMDs are real hex cores and are very cheap for that category.

And not to forget I have done an extensive web search about that topic. You should do the same. ^^

Originally Posted by em99010pepe

I hope he does improve.

He has already done so. If you give him (temporary) access to a new installed amd hex core (via ssh) he might optimize it, too.

[Ferdy]

Originally Posted by em99010pepe

Ferd,

You also need to watch for the overclock capability vs energy efficiency. Core i5 is better.

EDIT: Anyway, what's your current machine?

My current machine is a Conroe E6750 sat 2,66Ghz.

Ferdy

[Brain]

Why don't you wait for Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture next January?
By the way, my Core i5 750 costed me 150 Euros in November 2009 and runs Prime stable at 3700 MHz on all 4 cores with air cooling...
Formerly, I had always preferred AMD...

[joblack]

Originally Posted by Brain

Why don't you wait for Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture next January?
By the way, my Core i5 750 costed me 150 Euros in November 2009 and runs Prime stable at 3700 MHz on all 4 cores with air cooling...
Formerly, I had always preferred AMD...

A friend of mine overclocked his 6 core AMD from 2.8 to 3.5 ghz (aircooled). Price is around 160 euro and you got 2 more cores.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by joblack

A friend of mine overclocked his 6 core AMD from 2.8 to 3.5 ghz (aircooled). Price is around 160 euro and you got 2 more cores.

My air -cooled AMD 6-core is currently clocked at just under 3.8MHz and running very stably. Here is a snippet from /proc/cpuinfo:

[pcl@anubis ~]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor    : 0
vendor_id    : AuthenticAMD
cpu family    : 16
model        : 10
model name    : AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1090T Processor
stepping    : 0
cpu MHz        : 3780.838
cache size    : 512 KB
physical id    : 0
siblings    : 6
core id        : 0
cpu cores    : 6
apicid        : 0
initial apicid    : 0
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 6
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow constant_tsc rep_good nonstop_tsc extd_apicid pni monitor cx16 popcnt lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save
bogomips    : 7351.62
TLB size    : 1024 4K pages
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment    : 64
address sizes    : 48 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts ttp tm stc 100mhzsteps hwpstate [9]

I've been an AMD fan for quite a few years now.

Paul

[petrw1]

How about some real life, hard numbers.
The Benchmarks page is a very good start but it only reports the calculated potential thruput of one core running solo. It won't tell you the impact of loading all cores.

So in our example here, if an AMD 1090T 6-core and an i5-750 are equally clocked (or over clocked) and all 6 or 4 cores are fully loaded equally how many total GIMPS GhzDays per day can it process?

My personal experience for example:
I have a Q9550 (2.83 Ghz) and a i5-750 (2.66Ghz).
My own benchmarks page entries show that for a 2560 FT I can do an LL iteration at 38.22 and 35.30 ms respectively. Hmm looks pretty close.
HOWEVER, if I load them each with 4 2560 LL then the iteration times change to about 53-57 and 37-38 Ghz respectively. A BIG DROP for the Q9550 simply because it is well documented that it has memory channel / bandwidth / sharing issues.

[sdbardwick]

My earlier post has a bit of what you are looking for.
Link to spreadsheet