Let's have a new AMD vs Intel arguement!

Ok so here is the deal......
I currently have a computer (good start right?) this is my setup....

CPU: Intel G3258 (oc to 4.6ghz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H110 Hydro Cooler
Motherboard: MSI Gaming 3 1150
Memory: 2x 4gb Corsair Vengeance 1600
Storage: 3x WD Green 2tb HDD
Storage: 128gb Kingston SSDNOW V300
Video Card: VTX3D Radeon 7770
Case: NZXT S340
Power Supply: EVGA 650w G2
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise x64

I use it for Lightroom CC, Photoshop CC, Sony Vegas and obviously web browsing etc. I have a Sony A6000 so photos will be from that (approx 25mb raws)
And it is time for me to make a new build.... mainly because i'm bored.... So here is what i'm aiming for....


CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 965 Black edtn
CPU Cooler: Corsair H110 Hydro Cooler
Motherboard: ASRock 970A-G/3.1 Motherboard with USB 3.0 Type A+C
Memory: 2x 4gb Corsair Vengeance 1600 LP
Memory: 2x 4gb Corsair Vengeance 1600
Storage: 3x WD Green 2tb HDD
Storage: 128gb Kingston SSDNOW V300
Video Card: Unsure. Possibly R9?
Case: Corsair Obsidion 750D
Power Supply: EVGA 650w G2
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (possibly)
Other: Carbon Fibre motherboard tray, Custom PSU shield, Custom cable management and length.

Also looking at adding a few more HDDs too but not got that far....

I'm on a VERY tight budget and will be re-using some parts from my old build and spares i have laying around, I already have / will re-use the following:

CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 965 Black edtn
CPU Cooler: Corsair H110 Hydro Cooler
Memory: 2x 4gb Corsair Vengeance 1600 LP
Memory: 2x 4gb Corsair Vengeance 1600
Storage: 3x WD Green 2tb HDD
Storage: 128gb Kingston SSDNOW V300
Power Supply: EVGA 650w G2

What do we think?

Heya,

At that CPU price range, really, it doesn't matter much what you get. Intel vs AMD is largely going to depend on what applications you're using them for. Since you're saying it's intense use would be photo editing and some video editing. Everything else is basically vast overkill for the machine (general stuff, like web, email, etc).

For Intel, you'd need to get a Core i5 minimum for it to be worth while (Core i5 6500 is probably best bang/buck ratio Intel right now for a budget approach).

For AMD, the FX-8350 would be worth while and compete.

Both are going to be great for your needs. Mostly just comes down to budget and personal preference.

I would put more stress on more ram (16Gb~32Gb) and a ton of emphasis on quickly getting off the WD Green drives. WD Greens are something I'd not trust any work to nor storage to. If you want long term storage and heavy use, look at WD Reds. Don't try to save money on Greens. They're bad news for anything short of a budget computer full of steam games. Any component that fails on your system isn't a big deal, and replaceable, a HD failure can cost you work. I wouldn't go budget there.

Do you need a GPU really? Game at all that you care about? Use it for rendering at all (software/video; via OpenCL)? If so, I'd get a CUDA capable nVidia. If it's for gaming, get whatever you want. If you do neither, just get something inexpensive that does what you need.

Very best,

Thanks for the reply,

I'm not a gamer, i think i have played one game on my pc in the last 3 years.
I'll look at moving away from the greens. At the moment they kind of work together as 2 in mirror raid and one as backup.
do you think the Phenom will work better / worse than my G3258?

urbanfreestyle wrote in post #17882821
Thanks for the reply,

I'm not a gamer, i think i have played one game on my pc in the last 3 years.
I'll look at moving away from the greens. At the moment they kind of work together as 2 in mirror raid and one as backup.
do you think the Phenom will work better / worse than my G3258?

Heya,

The G3258 is a good dual core, moving to the quad core 965 AMD will not be an upgrade for single and dual core level performances honestly. The 965 will only pull ahead in multi-threaded application where the 4 cores are utilized (video encoding comes to mind). Photoshop, Lightroom, etc, really doesn't take much advantage of multi-threading, so CPU's with the strongest single core performances still do best there (ie, Intel).

Very best,

I would have thought that photoshop / lightroom would enjoy the extra cores for things like exporting / whilst editing. I think the biggest gain will be that i'm moving to 16gb ram... at some point i will be moving away from the Greens so that should give a boost.

any ideas where i can get real world benchmarks?

urbanfreestyle wrote in post #17882834
I would have thought that photoshop / lightroom would enjoy the extra cores for things like exporting / whilst editing. I think the biggest gain will be that i'm moving to 16gb ram... at some point i will be moving away from the Greens so that should give a boost.

any ideas where i can get real world benchmarks?

Heya,

I would look at Adobe CC benchmarks.

Tom's Hardware does it often.

http://www.tomshardwar​e.com …-performance,3849-13.html

Specifically look at the Adobe Photoshop CC benches. The AMD 965 is very similar clock for clock to the AMD 750k (architecture and L3 cache being the real difference).

In general I just look up specific model types and search for adobe CC benchmarks, as they're more recent. Or you can be specific to your versions.

Regardless if you look at different models, you'll see a pattern with adobe stuff, where the fastest or strongest single core performance CPUs do the same job as the multi-core (4x, 6x, 8x) processors do, because adobe simply hasn't gotten their act together with multi-threading their software and instead are just playing around with OpenCL for GPUs.

Very best,

Thanks for that, going to have a look now. The only reason i was looking at getting an R9 is because i saw that lightroom can use gpu acelleration?

urbanfreestyle wrote in post #17882870
Thanks for that, going to have a look now. The only reason i was looking at getting an R9 is because i saw that lightroom can use gpu acelleration?

GPU acceleration from OpenCL works for some things, but you have to look at the benchmark for that too and compare it to the CPU you have to see if it actually matters or not. On a dual core, a costly GPU might actually beat it (just guessing) for video rendering. But it will not make a massive difference in renders in adobe CC. Specifically focus on OpenCL because that's really the standard and will be in the future too (not CUDA specific to nVidia, that is not tomorrow's standard, OpenCL is).

Also, depends which R9 you're looking at (380, 290, etc). Big differences.

Very best,

Fair enough, perhaps i will just re-use the 7770.
Now starting to question weather i should actually bother with the phenom.....

urbanfreestyle wrote in post #17882894
Fair enough, perhaps i will just re-use the 7770.
Now starting to question weather i should actually bother with the phenom.....

I wouldn't. It's a side-step, not an upgrade, for what you're actually doing.

If you want gains, again, I would suggest i5 6500 as a starting point. Really AMD can't even compete at this price point as their flagship 8 core doesn't beat the i5 6500k ($200 CPU). That with 16~32gb ram, SSD, any GPU (no need for OpenCL really unless your bread & butter is video renders), and some quality hard drives for large files and storage will get you a lot of benefits over spending money and having the same thing with different numbers & names.

Very best,

Thanks for the info, happy if anyone else wants to chirp up lol.

I think i might have to look at just moving my current build over to the new case, add the ram and sell the phenom II to someone or swap for HDDs perhaps.