Intel or AMD?

I am going to replace My old and trusty dual core for a quad, but what should I buy? An AMD Phenom or an intel Quad?

I always buy AMDs. I find they have better performance and consume less power than intel processors, and they usually cost less as well.

I agree with Looney, AMD is better.

Go with the cheaper brand.

in the pc world it's often based on what you can get most from what you can spend. with amd it's often a modest performance at an affordable price. if you look at the amd athlon x2 series [dual core] they don't perform as much as intel's core 2 duo but if you consider the cost, amd surely beats intel. however, if you don't consider cost vs performance then at the current market, intel is on top.
all the core 2 duo and the core 2 quads are destroying all the athlon x2 and phenoms. the i7 for instance is intels current flagship and since it's such a status it takes the cost to get it.amd has some problems with their old generation of quads and i'm not sure if the newer phenom II has them or not. hopefully loony can fill us on this. the new phenom II's are modest.

the Athlon X2s came out long before the core series (they were more or less AMD's response to the P4HT, which they beat flat, and they contributed to intel declaring the P4 series a failure). AMD processors have a lot more instruction sets than the intel ones, meaning when using software that is able to use the extra instruction sets you will get far better performance from an AMD. AMD processors traditionally outperform their intel equivalent models, however I have not experienced the core series processors or the phenoms, as I switched to opterons in my own machine. I would doubt a core series with the same clock could compare to the opteron I have, but they are not the same class of processor, so that is somewhat guaranteed. Another important consideration is that in my experience AMD processors are a lot more efficient than intels, they draw less power and produce less heat, meaning it is easier to keep them cool, and costs less to run them. One of my friends is very happy with his phenom II, but I've not been to his place yet so I can't compare it to my opteron (although his phenom has a higher per-core clock).

Replying to #6

are there many software that use those extra instructions? i find that when a developer has the option of being lazy or being very ambitious, they often opt for the lazy part. btw, the athlons did beat the p4s and even the d series. you could have known that when they decided to use rambus! anyway, that was back then that athlon were very successful but at the current moment they are shakey and intel is the leader. but people and even i are looking forward for the day they retake the lead.

Replying to #7

CPU intensive stuff often does, especially multimedia apps, as they're optimised for multimedia.

Im buying an amd Phenom X4 9950 2.6GHZ which is a little faster than an intel core 2 quad (Q9400) & intel core 2 quad Q6600 2.4 ghz and a whole lot cheaper (P4000 cheaper or $80 cheaper) than the equivalent priced core 2 quad from Intel. You all are all right. AMD is surely cheap. ^_^

hey lochongbaboy where you buying?

pc corner, price P10,430.

make sure you get a compatible motherboard and other parts. My friend has a 2.6Ghz phenom I believe

I use Intel because...They're cool? :)Well, pretty much all of EVGA's motherboards are for Intel. But that's because AMD owns ATI.

Replying to #13

And expensive. ;D

i got a q9550 and it's clocked in at 3.7ghz. i could not get it higher due to the motherboard being a p35 and others also have mentioned the limitation of the board. if i had something like the p45 or the newer x48, then i should be able to reach 4ghz.with intel you're guaranteed at least a 700mhz overclock increase and at most 1.1-1.2ghz increase [probable is 1ghz].
but then again it goes back to what loony has said, that it isn't necessarily about the clock speeds as he mentions about the extra instruction sets for boosted performance.

I now have 2x quad core opterons :)

Replying to #16

aren't opterons server or business class products?

yes, they're server class processors.

Replying to #18

how much is that? :o

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819105193&Tpk=opteron%202354