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Which CPU Is Tops in Price/Performance?
mikemuch writes "You can spend 150 bucks or over a thousand on a processor, but how do you know which gives you the most power for your money? It's a little like MPG for CPUs. ExtremeTech's Loyd Case does extensive benchmarking on twenty-three current desktop processor flavors from AMD and Intel. While of course most folks won't make dollar-efficiency the sole basis for their chip decisions, it's interesting to see which CPUs get you, for example, the most frames per second in Far Cry for a dollar." From the article: "Take PC games, for example. The cheapest CPU available may have the best frame rate per dollar ratio. But you still need an adequate frame rate for an optimum gaming experience, and the cheapest CPU may not deliver that. On the other hand, office applications are generally not as sensitive to raw performance, and the lower cost processor may be better. It's all in what you do."
By narrowing the field to intel and amd, dont we cut the pie awefully thin?
What about IBM, Sun, Motorola, Transmeta, and hell even VIA?
What I'd really like to see is how the "normal" chips stack up in price/performance effeciency vs the "non standard" lineup....
-GenTimJS
Not exactly surprising, but I wonder how much of that is tied to the OS (f'rinstance, dual core kicks ass on OS X for processor-intensive tasks). Similarly, I wonder how much of it is simply benchmarking the wrong kinds of things. Comparing "office productivity" is mostly useless, as they say in the article, yet it still gets benched. Similarly, graphics, while still relying on the CPU, uses the GPU more and more.
I've found in my own little "tests" that heavy-duty rendering and long-term CPU processes are really where the benchmark tests are at. Fire up something like VirtualDub and compare the time it takes to transcode video files, for instance, or use ffmpegX on Mac OS X. That's where the real CPU tests come into play. Not office and games.
(I'd also be curious to see what happens if you start switching around operating systems. Test to see if an AMD chip and NVIDIA board is better running a Linux flavor compared to Intel, for instance).
fps/euro.
You buy the fastest CPU you can afford at the time. Stay away from the one or two top-of-the line chips unless you have mad money. And know that in another year you could buy twice the performance for the same price.
You really need to look at your long term costs ... the power to run your computer in the long run is likely to account for a significant fraction of the overall price, so you should factor that in.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
It seems it would be more cost effective simply to buy a cheaper processor and upgrade your system more often than it would be to spend on the more expensive processors.
I had thought it a strange summary actually , After reading through the article the Athalon 64 3000+ was a clear winner by a large margin .. unless I misread some of the results .The only things the AMD chips did badly on were artificial tests.
They didn't even mention the chip in the summary and it pulverised every other chip
Defiantly a great buy for your money .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
I found it interesting how well the AMD 3000+ did in the benchmarks. On almost every benchmark it had the highest score for price/performance in 3d and gaming related tests. It seems like buying this cpu and putting money in a better video card are the smart choice. I'm basing this on the fact that most gamers go through quicker upgrade cycles anyway.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
To answer this, AMD64 processors typically draw less power, and perform better than their Intel counterparts. Welcome to the mixed up tech world of today, with Intel inside Macintoshes, IBM inside Microsoft hardware, and overheating Intel chips.
ads...
words...
benchmarks...
ads...
conclusion: there is no conclusion.
this article was the longest bit of nothing ive ever read.
dude.
I'm fairly confident that I'll never have to uprgade again. I'm running on 2ghz, and it's more than adequate for my linux window manager - it runs perfectly adequately. In fact probably 500mhz would have done a suitable job. If you're not a gamer or a windows user, then you shouldn't need that much to run an eye candy laden os. I'm fairly sure the only thing pushing the cpu market is the gaming industry, and the necessity for Microsoft to push a new generation of their products in coming years. CPU speeds have increased usefully over the last 15 years, but I can't come up with any home-computer user applications (apart from gaming) that would need more.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
(And before you ask, yes, I did get it for free....)
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
They say price/performance higher-is-better... Higher would mean more price for less performance... I don't understand how they're coming up with that metric, maybe they're actually saying performance/price, but they don't know how ratios work, or am I just missing something important?
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Both of these processors need $500 of ancillary equipment in order to function. Therefore, a system with processor A gives 100 units for $600, or 0.167 units/$, whereas processor B gives 150 units for $650, or 0.231 units/$. This analysis shows that processor B is better value when speccing out a new system
But what about the case where you're just upgrading your cpu? Well, in that case it's moot to compare the AMD with the Intel processors, as you would need a new motherboard too. But simply dividing the performance by the cost of the cpu is meaningless here, too, because staying with your existing processor ($0) would give you a performance/price ratio of infinity.
Conclusion: you have to calculate your total outlay in order to figure out which cpu is the better value.
// Mechanical Engineer Rant
... there is no boundary work, no (mechanical) forces acting over a distance, and no shaft work.
;) // end Mechanical Engineer Rant
Well
I'd say that a processor produces ZERO mechanical work.
When you look at a computer as a whole, you put in electrical power, and get out heat (with only a tiny amount of real 'work' from the fans). So from a thermodynamic standpoint, it's just an overpriced, inefficient spaceheater.
Always keep that in mind when upgrading
Dell CPU price secret formula: $1 per MHz + $7 postage.
Sure you can solve little man's syndrome by buying an "efficient" powerhouse Processor, but what good is it when you wont see any difference 99% of the time and you can save $400.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
The trouble with older CPUs is that they lose power later in life as the magic smoke wears out. A 3.6GHz Pentium 4 is basically the same speed as a 486DX2/66 was in 1992, but the 486 "seems" slower today because the magic smoke has escaped so it isn't as powerful anymore.
The trouble with older CPUs is that they lose power later in life as the magic smoke wears out. A 3.6GHz Pentium 4 is basically the same speed as a 486DX2/66 was in 1992, but the 486 "seems" slower today because the magic smoke has escaped so it isn't as powerful anymore.
Sounds like you have partook a bit of the "magic smoke" yourself.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
it's just an overpriced, inefficient spaceheater
It's funny, I feel the same way about a lot of coworkers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
That's not uncommon. When a company doesn't want to carry/sell a product, instead of saying no, they just price themselves out of the market. That way: a) The customer never hears a, "no", which is something to avoid. b) If someone actually does buy from you at that price, what the hell, you made a buttload.
I ran into this on my home printer. I bought an HP 2550 printer (for doing all of the printing for my wedding). It comes standard with 64MB of RAM. This is plenty until you start sending graphics to the printer. So to stop the "Out of Memory" errors, I decided to upgrade the memory. The printer would handle an extra 128MB SODIMM.
Price from HP: US$800
My response: Bullshit!
Price from Kingston: US$50
And, it only took me moments to find the right part with Kingston's website (they have a really nice memory finder). Also, Kingston offers a lifetime warranty and puts out a solid product, so no worries about a fly by night company.
So, in the end, I got what I wanted and HP got to stay out of the memory business, without ever explicitly telling me "no".
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Oh noes A Celeron! It might have *gasp* half the cache! Centrino is just a buzzword for a Pentium-M Processor with a certain kind of intel wireless chipset. Big fucking deal. And guess what else? Celeron-M processors are exactly identical to Pentium Ms other than the cache and clock speeds. Same pipeline, same architecture, same power-saving features. Same great performance per-clock compared to the P4. Celeron Ms are more than fast enough for people just wanting to do office stuff. They're a perfectly fine value processor - not a high-performance one - and certainly not something to be avoided like the plague.
/ i ndex.htm
Perhaps you should look at these two links before you post another ill-informed post bashing an intel processor.
http://www.intel.com/products/processor/celeron_m
http://www.intel.com/products/processor/pentiumm/
Excellent gaming commentary from a guy who advertises a coupons site.
No reason to lie.
But, people don't buy/build The Ultimate Gaming Machine(TM) to improve their game stats, they buy it so they can have The Ultimate Gaming Machine(TM).
So, if an extra $362.00 will get you a faster processor, and $574.00 will get you the better video card, it doesn't matter whether your skills require you to be inside the barn to shoot it.
You may notice that case mods don't improve performance at all, but people still spend money on them.
Disclaimer: If I had more money I'd buy spiffy hardware too.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
They left out overclockability
Yes, I know not everyone overclocks, but with chips that clock as easy as the A64's, you almost have to consider it. For example, the 3200+ came out as second place for performance/$ in every test, beat only by the 3000+. However, my 3200+ is currently running stable and cool at 2.6 Ghz and has a 512K cache.
This puts it between the 4000+ and the FX-55. And my OC is very typical. As a matter of fact, it is low. Just about any venice 3200+ will hit that speed easily, and many will reach 2.7+Ghz. This puts the peformance/$ WAY up there.
The 3000+ would probably also beat it. For some reason when I purchased my CPU, I forgot that I could run my RAM on dividers, so I ordered the 3200+ for its higher multiplier, which is completely useless with any modern motherboard, since RAM speed and CPU speed are independant of each other.
So basically, I am saying get a 3000+, since it is the best chip out there for for performance/$, and almost matches the top of the heap for raw performance as well.
I always wonder why I feel more appreciated at work during winter. :(
It's odd that they've not included any Semprons or Celerons in there...
As energy prices climb the effect will only become more pronounced. Selecting a processor which is cheaper and faster but also happens to consume as much power as a small city is NOT a cost effective solution. Why blind ourselves to this?
In a way he is right. The programing for a 486dx2 was leaner and faster then the stuff availible today. It seems that you upgrade a slow and slugish computer for a faster new one and after years of program upgrades, the bloated newer stuff apears to run as slow as the computers you upgraded. Windoes runs slower (even though they say it is faster) with every upgrade, office applications tend to do the same. Even antivirus (especialy symantecs offerings) end up using more resources and cycle and give the apearance or running like an older computer.
In fact, i just pulled out my 486SX/33 computer running windows 3.11. loaded a couple programs i used then and still use today. Even thought the newer programs have become more powerfull and such, the 3.11 486 loaded a program at about the same speed and apeared more respncive to menu commands then the new program on my P4/2.8gig machine.
Maybe the magic smoke is bloated software that seems to find its way into updates and such.
As previous stated, you must consider total cost of ownership. Pentium M desktops are not common yet but if you check the benchmark sites, you will see that the 2.1GHz Pentium M out performs the P4 running at 3.0GHz. And at 1/3 the power consumption. Intel Engineers knew the P4 was a dog when they ran the first simulation, but upper management didn't want to wait 2 months and spend millions to rework the core, so they used marketing to push the product and their marketing department should all get raises, because it worked. They used the lame excuse to techies that the pipeline is designed to work better at higher speeds, so the clock speed race had begun. When the PM are available I'm scrapping my P4, getting more perfomance, lower electric bills, lower medical bills (later in life from EMI)and leaving the dog behind. As for AMD, I am a big fan of the underdog with the superior product, AMD64, but it still is a little too pricey and sucks a lot of power also. It would be my fallback if the Pentium M does not make it to market soon. The Notebook manufactures want all of the PM production and are fighting to keep it. We will see.