Opinions Wanted

My school district is planning next years budget and every year I am assigned the task to spec out the new computers. We primarily use Dell and this year we have a choice between AMD and Intel so I decided to compare. I put a couple models together and asked my fellow techies for their input and a couple of them came back and strongly opposed using AMD chips. I am a Huge AMD fan and I'll admit that Intels latest offerings of processors are very good and better in some ways, but the machines I put together are nearly identical and the AMD offering is cheaper. See Below:

Dell Optiplex 745
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 1.86Ghz 2M Cache
1GB DDR2 SDRAM @667Mhz
Integrated Intel 3000 video
80GB SATA2 HDD
16X DVD-ROM
13 in 1 Media reader
$1191.87

Dell Optiplex 740
AMD Athlon X2 5200+ @ 2.6GHz 2Mx2 Cache
1GB DDR2 SDRAM @ 667Mhz
Integrated NVidia Quadro NVS210S Video
80GB SATA2 HDD
16X DVD-ROM
13 in 1 media reader
$1113.13

As you can see they are very similarly configured but the AMD is 600+Mhz Faster and I do not think the 1.86Ghz Intel is faster overall despite its improvements. Also I think the Nvidia graphics is a bit better than Intel integrated. The 740 is $78 cheaper and that may not sound like much, but when we plan on getting about 400 systems that is $32,000 which can be applied to get some laptops for our schools. The price may change a little as Dell usually gives us a very good educational and quantity discount.

I think I have made my decision, but thought I would get the opinion of some fellow techies just for the hell of it. Besides school districts love it when you can save them tens of thousands of dollars and possibly get more for their money.

Oh and in case you were wondering why the couple tech staff opposed AMD, their ownly arguments were that AMD chips are not as compatible and they heard they are not as reliable. It seems to me that these false facts are still out there. Kudos to the Intel Marketing team for filling people with false information.

I like both... but it depends what the machine is going to run... if it's just office and network then it doesn't matter. If it's dv movie making then I like the intel better for it, gaming, I prefer the amd.

They are for general use in our computer labs and throughout the building. I am sure some low level movie making using movie maker may be done on them, but nothing too extensive. Gaming is a non issue really as all the educational games we have on our network are 2D and most are flash based.

if it was me who decided i would go the amd way for the money,they are just as good as intel and just as lasting,you can send a new laptop with the money saved,lol

It's been my experience that bang for buck, the core2duo is a better processor then the AMD offerings.

One aspect that you may want to look at that seems to have been overlooked is power usage.

I know AMD has added it's 65nm core (will you get these with the Dell systems?) in their processor lineup, this will put AMD in a similar thermal wattage as core2duo, but, the core2duo has speed step, lowering clock speeds and reducing power draw overall, being in a school, i'm sure the systems may stay on 24/7 or for extended times when no-one is using the system. Will these features have an impact on the power bill?

AMD is also an aging core technology soon to be replaced i think. Core2duo is new on the market and is making Good headway.

My final comment comes down to compatibility; Vista is just out the door a month or two and between Intel and nVidia chipsets, who is getting better support out the door? (hint, nVidia may be facing a class action law suite regarding this..).

In a corp environment, compatibility and reliability will and should put performance in a second place seat.

I vote core2duo.

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Originally Posted by Matridom

In a corp environment, compatibility and reliability will and should put performance in a second place seat.

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So are you saying that the intel is more compatible and reliable? That I do not believe. I see what you say about the power savings and we have taken steps to conserve power and are able to shut down entire groups of computers with a touch of a button or using timed tasks. I still think the $32,000 savings is worth it because there is no way the computers are going to cost that in electricity difference vs an intel system. Also when it comes to over all performance I gather a 1.86Ghz Core 2 is about the same as a 2.4GHz Athlon X2 on most real world performance tests. So that being the case I could scale back the the Optiplex 740 and that would jump the savings to about $170 a machine. Multiply that by 400 systems and you see astounding savings $68,000. So I think I am justified in my decision in choosing AMD in this case.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Matridom

AMD is also an aging core technology soon to be replaced i think. Core2duo is new on the market and is making Good headway.

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That may be true, but I think we will all be surprised with AMD Barcelona and Hypertransport 3.0 and the other improvements added. But that is a topic for a different discussion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BOB IROC

So are you saying that the intel is more compatible and reliable? That I do not believe.

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That's pretty close, what i'm saying is that the Intel chipset (not processor) is more compatible then the nVidia chipset. nVidia tunes it's drivers for the performance oriented market, I.E. Gamers. Intel tunes to reliability and compatibility.

Also, it's kinda funny, I just priced out the same systems, got $1068 for the intel and $1020 for the AMD system. However, the AMD system comes with XP Pro and the Intel comes with Vista Business.

That tells me that Vista is not currently compatible with the 740 (some piece of hardware does not have proper drivers) I also wonder what the price difference between xp and vista is? (is it more then the difference in the cost of the system?)

Both the 740 and 745 I put together have Vista Business. The price is a little inflated because I built the desktop model and I added the PCI-x/PCI riser Card so full height cards can be used and I also added a firewire card to the system which brought the price up a bit. I think the NVidia chipset and NVidia Quadro video will be just fine and it was the better performance aspect was another selling point for me. I have never been impressed with the performance on Intel integrated video solutions.

AMD has no compatibility issues with Intel at all. Going back to the days when AMD built "486" processors, AMD has owned licenses for virtually all core Intel technologies. I can assure you, that even as these technologies have matured, basic coding issues haven't changed much.

AMD's implementation of running 64 and 32 bit code in parallel is still ahead of Intel. Over the last decade I've had more defective Intel CPUs than AMD. Intel's Core 2 Duo CPU's have certainly gained an advantage over AMD in performance and power consumption, but that really isn't as important as the marketing flacks make it seem. In most applications, processing power isn't very important. Currently, different levels of power consumption mostly mean slightly cooler processors. You don't see the kind of power savings moving from CRTs to LCDs.