Intel V AMD

[DaiRees]

Now I've always been Intel through and through and always refused to get AMD stuff, but the wife's laptop has given up and she needs one for work in a hurry, so am I being overly picky?

[steve_earwig]

I'm sure Highlander et al will have something to say but I'm biased towards Intel for no readily apparent reason. although long ago I saw a vid of what happens to CPUs when they get hot, Intels turn themselves off while AMDs smoke & burst into flames. Maybe things have changed now though

[trufflehunt]

Now I've always been Intel through and through and always refused to get AMD stuff, but the wife's laptop has given up and she needs one for work in a hurry, so am I being overly picky?

Yes you are, imo.

Get one that is a decent colour, with a keyboard that feels good to use, and a good screen.

I have an oldish Sony Vaio. Great screen,it cost me £90 on eBay. Add in £15 for a new copy of Windows XP,
also on eBay... Total £105.

[Welly]

I thought this was about some Football match on the telly

[steve_earwig]

I (briefly) thought it was some new hybrid processor

[puggy]

[DaiRees]

What are you lot like?

As Steve said, I've always been biased towards intel but never really knew why. Anyway, she only uses it for office stuff and internet browsing (read "shopping"!!) this looks like a decent spec for the price...
http://www.ebuyer.com/409379-samsung-35 ... 5v5c-a06uk

[KozmoNaut]

My current PC is AMD, it works fine. My previous PC was Intel, it worked fine as well. Same goes for my Intel-powered netbook and my NVIDIA-powered tablet.

If you want the absolute fastest PC money can buy, you need to go Intel, their i7 is top dog. For everything else, doesn't matter. For laptops, ergonomics and battery life should be the prime priorities.

[mjb]

If you want the absolute fastest PC money can buy, you need to go Intel, their i7 is top dog. For everything else, doesn't matter.

E5, not i7, is top dog in the x86 world, although the E7s are due to make it to market soon - can't wait to get my mitts on some.

Currently I'll take an Intel chip over an AMD due to the vastly better performance per pound (both single-threaded and per-package) as well as vastly better efficiency, which of course is vital in any laptops which aren't permanently tethered to the mains and sitting on a heatproof mat.

AMD had their day when they were knocking out competitive chips for peanuts (486, 586, K6, K6-2, Duron, XP, G1 Opteron) but nowadays they're way behind. The Magny-cours, bulldozer, etc chips had a lot of promise, but per-core performance is well behind what I'd expect, crypto performance is well off Intel's mark, and their power consumption is through the roof.

But that's just my somewhat demanding use cases... At the end of the day, Dai, just make sure it's got a fast SSD and piles of RAM in it, but if it's going to be run without a power cord, an Intel chip will be handy

[Welly]

E5, not i7, is top dog in the x86 world, although the E7s are due to make it to market soon - can't wait to get my mitts on some.

Currently I'll take an Intel chip over an AMD due to the vastly better performance per pound (both single-threaded and per-package) as well as vastly better efficiency, which of course is vital in any laptops which aren't permanently tethered to the mains and sitting on a heatproof mat.

AMD had their day when they were knocking out competitive chips for peanuts (486, 586, K6, K6-2, Duron, XP, G1 Opteron) but nowadays they're way behind. The Magny-cours, bulldozer, etc chips had a lot of promise, but per-core performance is well behind what I'd expect, crypto performance is well off Intel's mark, and their power consumption is through the roof.

But that's just my somewhat demanding use cases... At the end of the day, Dai, just make sure it's got a fast SSD and piles of RAM in it, but if it's going to be run without a power cord, an Intel chip will be handy

*nods, as if he knows what mjb's talking about
*carefully shuffles over to the door
*makes sure no-ones noticed
*runs like the wind

[KozmoNaut]

If you want the absolute fastest PC money can buy, you need to go Intel, their i7 is top dog. For everything else, doesn't matter.

E5, not i7, is top dog in the x86 world, although the E7s are due to make it to market soon - can't wait to get my mitts on some.

Well yeah, but only insane nutters with no sense of price/performance ratios put Xeons in their desktops :-)

[mjb]

Well yeah, but only insane nutters with no sense of price/performance ratios put Xeons in their desktops :-)

Compute power isn't the only reason to use Xeons. I've got 64GB in my i7-3820 desktop, but I was very tempted to go for a pair of Xeons to get more RAM in, and be able to use ECC stuff. Thankfully I've got access to machines with sensible amounts of RAM, because I'd have also needed to faff about getting a soundcard and decent disk controller too, as those tend to be absent on Supermicro motherboards

[DaiRees]

Thanks for the advice guys but is always the way with forum threads about computers it's got a bit out of hand

The 3 fundamentals for this lappy are:
1) must be able to use office apps to a fairly basic level
2) surf the net competently
3) and be CHEAP 'cos as well as being used by the wife for the above it'll be abused by the kids, £3-400 max budget!

All I was trying to establish was, is the AMD processor reliable enough or should I shell out another £50 of the wife's money for a pretty much identical spec but with an Intel i3?

Anyway, I came to the conclusion that the Samsung in the link above will be perfectly adequate for £330, so I've ordered it. Guess we'll see how it performs in a few days. Really not looking forward to Windows 8 though, heard nothing but bad things about it!

[highlander]

Anyway, I came to the conclusion that the Samsung in the link above will be perfectly adequate for £330, so I've ordered it. Guess we'll see how it performs in a few days. Really not looking forward to Windows 8 though, heard nothing but bad things about it!

The laptop will be fine for her; Samsung make good laptops. My Dad has one (not this exact model) and it's nice - good quality screen (Samsung have made a name for themselves with their LCD and LED screens), does exactly what he needs it to.

Re. Windows 8 - it's actually pretty good, overall, just a couple of things wrong with it. The new-style start menu is utterly hopeless on a desktop or non-touchscreen laptop - it's a tablet/phone UI and has no place on a desktop machine. To get around this, step 1 for you should be to download a program called ClassicShell, which makes Windows 8 boot straight to the desktop and it reinstates the familiar start button and start menu. The only other thing wrong with it are the stupid ALWAYS FULL-SCREEN "apps". To get around this, don't use them. You're not missing much.

[nutski]

Re. Windows 8 - it's actually pretty good, overall, just a couple of things wrong with it. The new-style start menu is utterly hopeless on a desktop or non-touchscreen laptop - it's a tablet/phone UI and has no place on a desktop machine. To get around this, step 1 for you should be to download a program called ClassicShell, which makes Windows 8 boot straight to the desktop and it reinstates the familiar start button and start menu. The only other thing wrong with it are the stupid ALWAYS FULL-SCREEN "apps". To get around this, don't use them. You're not missing much.

I'd just live with it for a couple of months, Windows 8.1 is on the horizon and Microsoft have buckled into adding a start menu again and also an option to boot straight to desktop, start menu doesn't personally bother me anymore as i never used the start menu much anyway as i always prefer to use they keyboard and filter down to an app i want, boot to desktop i great though!