AMD and Intel CPU’s have been battling for decades, but the battle has become one-sided. The new Pentium and Core chips have slowly edged out AMD at a variety of price points.
If you have a good budget, then Intel is obviously the way to go. This remains true until your budget falls low enough that the cheapest Core i5 quad is no longer an option for you. AMD just can’t compete with Intel’s best.
Those on a budget should give AMD’s chips a look. They offer more cores and better integrated graphics for those who have less than $200 to spend on a processor. These traits can make up for AMD’s inferior per-core performance in certain workloads. For example, the A10-7870K tends to encode video faster than similarly priced Intel Core i3 chips. It also offers far superior graphics performance if a discrete video card is not a possibility.
However, Intel has its perks. Even the company’s dual-cores are surprisingly competitive with Intel quads in intense workloads. Intel chips are also far more power efficient, so they tend to produce less noise and heat. Those traits can be important for a family PC, and if you’re looking at a laptop, Intel’s greater efficiency means better battery life.
The bottom line: Intel is superior, but costs more. There are situations where AMD makes sense for budget concerns, but the company has been reduced to depending on niche scenarios. If you can’t make up your mind, go Intel. It’s likely the better choice for you in the long run.
