Syfo-Dyas wrote:
> Hi,
>
> A friend of mine has an intel cpu 8400 and I would like to know what
> is the closest AMD equivalent to that processor. Another friend wants
> the same or similar power and speed but hates intel. So he only wants
> or prefers AMD. Do any of you experts on here know of the AMD
> equivalent in power and speed of an intel 8400 3.0Ghz processor???
>
> Thanks in Advance
There is a difference between single threaded and multi threaded
performance. A lot of software is single threaded, and doesn't
use multiple cores. So you can't rely on having more cores,
as a crutch for insufficient core clock speed.
One problem with benchmarks, is their emphasis on multi-threaded
performance (gaining benefit from multiple cores). Tomshardware charts
don't give a description of what a test might be testing. As far as I know,
only something like the iTunes benchmark might be single threaded. Using
a single threaded benchmark, is to make sure a lot of single threaded
stuff performs at the same level.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2...0.52,1405.html
The E8400 3GHz finished the benchmark in 101 seconds. The
fastest AMD processor in the charts (green lines) is
AMD Phenom II X4 965 (Deneb 4c) 133 seconds
3.4 GHz, DDR3-1333, 2 MB L2, 6 MB L3
That means at 3.4GHz, it is running at 76% of the E8400.
You would have to overclock it to 3.4*(1 / 0.76) = 4.47GHz.
On hwbot.org, I can see some 965 systems overclocked to 4.2GHz
on air cooling. There are some on liquid nitrogen cooling
running at 6.2GHz. So if that 3.4GHz AMD processor was
overclocked as far as it would go on air cooling, then in
single threaded benchmarks it would come close to the E8400.
In multi-threaded, it might be easier to catch up, by
pitting an AMD quad against an Intel dual core. So if you
wanted to make the claim that the 965 was "just as good" as
the E8400, it might be true in cases where all four cores
could be made to work on a problem at the same time.
AMD is competitive on the low to mid range, but at the
very highest end, Intel is the winner. You buy AMD to
save a few bucks.
Paul