Intel or AMD

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So I have been using a cobbled together pc for a few years, its now time to upgrade to a REALLY good system,

I have been thinking about this build

Intel i7 4790k
GTX 980
16-32 gb of ram

I was looking into motherboards and trying to choose a good one and I came across a video of a real word test of an intel i7 3770 vs and AMD Phenom 2 and the intel was only barely quicker than the (at the time) 2 year old AMD.

So here is my question, what should I go for? I'm not interested in benchmarks just real world tests, if I go AMD what cpu, what motherboard and what gpu (ie is the gtx 980 still the card to have?)

Also do you guys know if the R9 390 going to be better than the gtx 980?

If I do go Intel what motherboard do you suggest and what ram is good?

Does anyone who knows things of this ilk want to suggest a build that would be good for gaming/video recording/photshop/rendering (with premiere elements if that makes a difference)

Thanks for looking.

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I had an AMD X4 940BE when it was brand new, and it certainly was a beast... I took it from 3.0 to 3.7 on pure air. And it came with a hell of a cooler (replaced.)

That being said, it was only rated for 800MhZ on four channels of RAM - it said 1066, but that turned out to be a two-stick maximum.

Be careful with AMD.

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wait for new cpu's / gpu's... they are going to come soon.
then see reviews...

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AMD is only competitive if: you have a heavily multi-threaded workload or are using Linux.

On Windows, for the purpose of gaming, Intel will hand AMD its ass on a silver platter. That's not to say AMD is entirely incapable, oh no, the problem with AMD is that they're just adequate, especially with the rise of the resolution in already GPU-bound gaming putting more pressure on GPUs than ever before. But for serious gamers and enthusiast, adequate is just unacceptable.

I've notice that AMD tends to be ahead of it's time when it comes to CPUs. The Phenoms had a plethora of L3 cache and unlocked multipliers and while not super competitive at the time, with their cheaper Athlon brethren getting about 90%-95% of the performance of the Phenom IIs, the Phenom II's aged much better than the Athlons, Core 2's and first gen Core iX series on 1156 platform.

AMD anticipated software would move rapidly and opted for a high core count, but apparently software is a lot slower to develop than hardware, as a result AMD's Bulldozer architecture, including Piledriver and the upcoming Excavator don't perform as well due to low IPC and is power hungry and warm thanks to high clock speeds. With parallelization so prevalent on mobile phones, with 10-core chips in the works, I think AMD was onto something, but had a poor implementation (they really should have learned from Intel's Netburst/Pentium 4) and a slow developing software in the desktop/x86 space made the problem worse.

As much as I like AMD's ideas and value, Intel is the way to for now. I'd certainly go for go for a Haswell i7 over an AMD FX if I had the budget for it. We'll see what AMD's Zen architecture will do, as it sounds very promising, but that's at least a year away, assuming no additional delays.

In terms of which mobo, so much crap that used to be on the motherboard is now integrated into the CPU that it really doesn't matter in regards to performance. If it's: a) Z-serie chipset b) has the i/o you need then it's a good motherboard. I'd go for the cheapest Z97 board there is, assuming you don't have any aesthetic needs or features (such as ASUS's AI Suite, SupremeFX sound, expanded I/O via 3rd party controllers, etc.)

As for the GPU, I'd wait for the R9 390. I expect the R9 390 to be better, but even if it isn't, AMD has historically had really aggressive pricing which will likely force NVidia to adjust pricing. It would be a win-win for waiting. Either get a better GPU, or a cheaper 980. Personally, I would be partial to AMD because of Freesync, especially since a I just purchased a Freesync Ultra-Wide monitor.

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Awesome information thank you for the input.

Do you think the i7 4790K is worth the money if I may not overclock straight away or should I go for the 6 core because I do a lot of rendering. I also like the idea of theR9 390 but I felt that looking at the current GPUs available the AMDs tend to use more power and run a fair but hotter, would you say this is a truism? I thought I had my build sorted in my head but watching a few real world test online the AMD cpu seems to render faster than the Intel, however, gaming performance was worse and as I will be streaming too it has me very confused. It also looks like the current 6 core Intels perform worse in games than the 4790K.

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In your particular case, the Core i7 would be worth it, but if you plan on rendering more than gaming, then upgrading to a six-core could make sense, specifically the 5820k. However, even though there is only a $50 in CPUs, there is also a difference in platform cost, as X99 and DDR4 memory both more expensive, creating an even further price difference, so you do have to measure cost to benefit. The skinny of it is if you aren't losing money from slower rendering times, stick with the Core i7 4790k. Going from even a Z97 Core i5 to an 8C/16T X99 Core i7 isn't going to make a difference in games, if anything, the Core i5 would have an advantage due to higher clock speeds.

As for AMD vs NV on GPU's, it's generally true that AMD eat a bit more power and run a bit warmer, but NV GPUs are more specialized for gaming where AMD's are more general use. NV trims parts of their GPU's that don't benefit gaming in order to keep thermals and power under control and make some crazy efficient GPUs at the expense of overall computing power- NV started this with Kepler, which was why if you did number crunching, such as BitCoin Mining, or Folding, it was recommended you use Fermi. AMD's GCN architecture is a number crunching beast. If you have a programs that can benefit from OpenCL acceleration, an AMD GPU will destroy just about any NV gpu. This is an older benchmark, but it illustrates this point perfectly with a R9 270x outperforming a GTX Titan.

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it realy depends on how much render work you are doing.

Basicly a 5820k 6 cores 12 Thread cpu, will be a great cpu if you do allot of productivity like video rendering next to gaming.
If gaming is your main focus, then i would say grab a 4790K.

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Wait, how is AMD better for Linux?

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For some people adequate is just fine if its 1/2 the price. And it is. lol Their GPU's are more than adequate however I'd recommend getting a good aftermarket GPU like saphire with a good cooler.

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AMD cpu´s are not better for Linux.

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They made it sound like AMD was better specifically for Linux, but maybe they just assumed that Linux users are budget oriented (feels like a crude generalisation). Alright, sorry for going OT.

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As someone already mentioned, "just adequate" is perfectly fine when you consider the price difference. You're spot on about the enthusiast attitude, though, and it's that which I usually argue against. It entirely depends on what you will be doing, of course, but I always default to prioritizing price to performance over exponentially more cost for more power. But for gaming, GPUs tend to matter more. And if not, there's plenty of overclocking headroom with a lot of FX chips, for example. And for production, multi threaded is usually the norm so... How much do you want to spend, that's the real question, especially when you consider that Intel mobos also tend to be more expensive (if anybody can point me to a discussion as to why, that'd be great).

What you said about AMD's outlook is interesting. This has been a discussion going back and forth for a while now, and I completely agree that AMD jumped the shark and prepared for a world of computing that just... didn't happen. Intel decided to dig down into current generation software while AMD ran ahead thinking the world would follow and, well, Intel was right because software moves so damn slow. It's for this reason that I'm interested in AMD's Zen that's coming out soon. As Logan said, it's exciting because if AMD can put pressure on Intel that's going to be good for the both.

So as far as the OP's rig, I'd say wait, if you can, with both GPU and CPU. I may be wrong, but I expect new, powerful hardware, a drop in price for old, or both.

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I really agree with what you're saying here. AMD gambled on the wrong horse and got left behind. It will be a wholly better environment if/when AMD gives us something that can approach or beat Intel's single threaded performance. The Zen architecture could very well be a game changer.

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I don't think it's a matter of "got left behind" so much as ran so far ahead that Intel took over the market when it catered to what the market currently is. AMD is right, in the long run. But for now, software is lagging behind. I do hope that Zen is where AMD addresses the current software limitations. I've heard that Zen will have something like hyper threading.

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Linux never had the performance issues with Bulldozer that Windows had. Part of that was thread-scheduling - linux recognized cores from different modules from the ones of the same module, and scheduled accordingly (similar threads that had common data were assigned to same module to take advantage of resource sharing), while Windows, at least initially, didn't differentiate between the cores, and often assigned task sub-optimally creating redundant work. If on Windows, if you disable the extra core in each module on the Zambezi chips, or manually assign affinity accordingly, you'll get about a 10-15% boost in single-threaded performance. The other part is the typical workload of the users. Gamers are a big part of the Windows user base, and software/games never advanced, even to this day, to scale beyond 4 cores. Linux users on the other hand, especially the scientific community, can leverage the extra cores to their advantage and edge the much more expensive Intel CPUs. For basic computing, Intel still has the upper hand on Linux, but when you get to the point where there isn't a discernible difference between "adequate" and "high-end", you have to factor in cost where the FX is significantly cheaper; I'd much rather have a $136 FX 8320e over a locked $225 Core i5 4690, especially when there are scenarios that the cheaper CPU can outperform the CPU that's nearly doubled the price. Talk about diminishing returns. Other advantages of the FX include unlocked multiplier and hardware virtualization. With Intel, iirc, you have the choose one or the other because Intel disables VT-d on their unlocked skews and their unlocked skews come at a price premium.
To be clear, I'm not saying FX is a better overall CPU, because Intel certainly has workloads on Linux where it will win by a landslide, what I'm merely stating is the FX is a lot more competitive under the Linux environment than it is in the Windows environment, and therefore worth more consideration if you're using Linux, especially with the ~$90 price discrepancy.

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I think the world of computing AMD anticipated came, just not on the medium they were in (x86 desktop space). As I've stated, the push for multi-core CPUs and GPUs in the mobile space has been fierce, and that's a space where parallelization matters. It seems like every year (literally) phones have more and more cores, now with 8 cores looking towards 10 cores, where the typical desktop is still on 4 cores. This is why AMD, a company with limited resources and an ambitious idea that didn't pan out pretty much ditched the performance segment with Bulldozer and shifted their focus on adapting the architecture for low-power APUs and HSA.

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an 8350 is still a pretty solid CPU for the money. It'll run most games fairly well especially if it's overclocked. I think it was only $170* last I looked, nearly half the cost of an i7 if I'm remembering right with most of the performance.

Otherwise currently the 280 is the card to get, it's nearing $150 in price.

As far as your recording/rendering build I've a build over here that might interest you:
https://forum.teksyndicate.com/t/streaming-pc-8320e/80054

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Great information thank you very much

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I disagree about Intel's mobos being more expensive. Because of the low power draw, unless you are overclocking, you can get away with having a much cheaper mobo without a problem at all. There are plenty of gaming and editing rigs based around H81, for example. However, if you want to get a decent AM3+ mobo for an 8 core part, then you are basically forced to go with 990fx or at the minimum 970. Considering that the mobo that you pick doesn't affect performance at all (unless you are overclocking), that means that Intel's mobos are cheaper. Now, if you are looking at price for features, then what you are saying holds a little more water. Back in the say, when AM3+ was still new, it had everything that a mobo could have and was still cheaper than the Intel offerings. Now, however, Intel's mobos have all the latest and the greatest and AM3+ is lagging behind. A top end AMD mobo will be less expensive than a top end Intel mobo still, but the features are much richer with Intel's stuff at the moment, so it is a trade off.

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agree

Thats basicly the nice part of intel Xeon E3 cpu´s for example.
Those can be paired with cheaper H97 boards or even cheaper B85 boards, and work totaly fine.
They will give you decent allround performance in gaming,
But also decent performance in video editing, rendering, streaming, and all that kind of stuf.

If you realy look for a new setup, then AM3+ and FX 8 core cpu´s, dont make much sense to me anymore personaly.
Because Intel at the moment has simply better solutions to offer, for a compairable price.

If you do allot of productivity and editing work, then you can also decide on a 5820k for example, that is ofc a bit more pricey, but it will ofc be the jack of all trades.
If X99 is realy to expensive for you, then the 4790K would be a great solution.
But if you realy want to save money then the Xeon E3-1231-V3 for example with cheaper H97 board, will definitely be a great choice.