Does Intel Need to Match AMD for Processor Cores?

I've seen just about every video linus and logan did on the current gen hardware i7s, i5s, amd fx chips and the comparisions with different graphics cards.

I'm wondering if intel needs to meet AMD in cores and what , if any, does it make a difference in the amount of cores a chip has? I don't see how AMD isn't blowing intels quad chips out the park with 8 cores.

Are we really seeing the last days of silicon chips progressing forward. Can we really see a doubling of speed again?

This all makes me wonder since the PS4 is going to use an 8 core AMD chip.

 

Intel has a few tricks up their sleve that AMD has yet to master, maybe not so much on your i3 and i5 but definitely when you start bumping into the i7 and X processors.

 AMD dosent actually have 8 cores think of the FX chips as amds vershon of intels hyper threading but working a differnt way.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/10/12/amd-fx-8150-review/2

My next system will be AMD. At this point the BS that intel is up to is making me wonder why do I bother with that overpriced stuff when I can get AMD for a faction with at near equal performance with the intels. Also tired of the intel socket changing shenanigans.

Well you don't have to buy the lastest and greatest. Few people are still rocking on Q6600 and Phenom X4 processors. Myself went with 3rd. generation i5 due to AMDs lack of SFF selection.

Intel has been modifying the Pentium 3 for the last 15+ years. Brand new i7? Just 4 modified (heavily modified) Pentium 3 cores. Intel's architecture is very mature and refined. The Atoms are different, but nobody cares about those.

AMD, on the other hand, largely started from scratch with Bulldozer. There's a lot more room for refining left to be done. Piledriver was a bigger performance increase than Intel has pushed out in several years, and Steamroller will probably be the same, which, by the looks of Haswell so far, could put AMD right back in the running.

Of course, if you look at the Linux community, where compiling programs from source, usually with compiler flags to tell which CPU family to optimize for, the 8350 is already much faster (compared to Intel's lineup) than it is on Windows. It sounds like conspiracy garbage or fanboyism to say that Intel is only ahead because programs are by default optimized for Intel, but it's true, to a degree. Not to say it's the ONLY reason they're ahead right now, but it definitely helps.

AMD will be in both of the important consoles by the end of the year for both CPU and graphics. Game developers will 1) learn to make better use of 6 or 8 cores or however many are available for the actual games to use, and 2) learn all sorts of low-level hackery to get more speed out of AMD CPUs, which will, to some extent, translate to the desktop world.

There's also HSA, which is basically a synergistic performance and efficiency boost that will be coming to AMD products in the next year or so. It would essentially allow CPU and GPU to function as seemless whole, even sharing memory space and such. There's nothing stopping Intel and/or Nvidia from also implementing HSA (AMD is not a fan of closed, proprietary systems), but they won't, because it is 100% AMD's ballgame and they will get beaten at it. Their strategy seems to involve just hoping it doesn't catch on.

What AMD needs to do is properly execute on the awesome circumstances they have lined up for the next couple of years while also not running dry out of money, but properly executing is not exactly their strong area.

As for what Intel needs to do: drop the Ultrabook garbage and stop trying to port x86 into the mobile space.If AMD manages to pull ahead in the desktop space and gain some serious market share, Intel might just be losing on too many fronts. As for what they could do in the desktop space, I don't think there's much of anything they could do immediately. If AMD pulls ahead, they can't just, say, sell 3960s, only cheaper. The dies are too big for that to be economical.

/essay

The trouble is, there's not really a standard definition of a "core," but whatever that definition is, AMD comes much closer than Intel.

AMD's piledriver cores share Cache in pairs of 2 instead of Intel's cores not sharing at all.  This is why some people call them not being full cores because to some people think each core should have its own cache.

I'm not going to go out tomorrow and replace the 3 i chips I have(i7 2600 server, i5 3570k gamer, i3 2717 laptop). Going forward to get away from the intel hog. Go with something that competes at a lower price point. I'm sure they'll have a chip to at least compete with intels. Less they do something complete assinine and sabotage themselves.

Eventually Intel will realize that they aren't actually spending that much to make each processor core and will wind up sticking several more cores on there and dropping the price just to finally crush AMD out of the market, but at the moment, they haven't because they are enjoying being held aloft by their fanboys and girls and they don't actually have to do anything different than they already have been.

+1 yeah i allways had intel, now i have my first amd, and wenn i look at the price to performance, im realy happy to give amd the chance this time.

Intel still makes better cpu´s im not gonne argu about that, but its mainaly based on per core performance, wenn you gonne look at a i7.

cause of theire HT they do better performance, in single threaded applications.

but hey the program´s now and in the future will be come more multi threaded, and optimized for more cores.

Thats why the diffrence in games between a much more expensive i7 3770k and a FX8350,

are so minimum, cause they optimized for more cores. that i truly believe that the midrange gaming system performance to price is just ownend bij amd.at the moment.

intel´s i7 (i5 doesnt have HT) only wins in the overall tasking, cause of theire ht per core performance, but wenn program´s gonne be more optimized for more threads more cores, then the diffrence only gonne get smaller and smaller.

i think thats why intel  going with theire tik tok, cause to keep ahead of the amd, but i think in the future, it maybe can turn the dice.

 

 

 

Very well thought out and articulate.

Sort of my thoughts on the AMD gamble right now, if i didn't have to pay tuition i'd be buying shares.

I got an intel computer in 2008. Only intel machine I've ever had. I've been pretty pleased with my AMD's, even though the pentium in it was quite nice.

I've got a Core 2 Duo E8200 in mine, and it's okay, but I really should have gone AMD and gotten something with four cores...