** I wanted to post in the PC forum but that option was not available **

This is a strange blog really, and I don’t want it start any flame wars, I would really like it to turn into a healthy debate, I want to start with some scene setting though and then I want to move on to ask a question, please try and stay with me if you’re interested in where this might go.

The Scene:

You are in a supermarket buying a loaf of bread and you see they have introduced a new size loaf that offers you extra bread, your normal loaf costs 1.00 (pick your currency) the new bigger loaf will cost you 1.57. Essentially you are facing a 21% increase in volume for a 57% increase in price. If both the smaller and larger loaf of bread were exactly the same brand then I think most people would not be tempted by such a proposition. If the bigger loaf was a better premium brand against the standard loaf then I think some people might be tempted while others would consider the bread to be less important than the quality of filling they use to make their sandwiches. Personally I’m a fillings person, premium bread with a plain filling is ok, but plain bread with a premium filling is better.

That’s it, that’s my case, so what am I talking about? I used bread as I have yet to come across a bread based flame war and more or less everyone I know, knows what it is.

A friend, someone who’s opinion I hold in high regard for most PC related matters said I should change my AMD CPU for an Intel CPU, but I see the benefits in the same light as I see the argument for paying 57% more money to get a 21% bigger loaf. Yes, I agree that the Intel is the Premium brand, and this is confirmed by CPU World who conducted 35 bench tests in which the i7 came out on top in every single one. The results were shown as the winning score being rated at 100% and then the next score shown as a percentage of the winning score. Of course 35 scores of 100 when expressed as an average is not surprisingly still 100% so I will look at the average score of the AMD which topped out at 98.9% and achieved a minimum score of 48%, the average over the 35 tests was 78.6% meaning on average the i7 outperformed the Phenom by 21.4%.

The i7 2600k retails in the UK for £236.60 and the 1100T retails for £149.94 which is a difference of £86.61, that difference expressed as a percentage increase over the AMD price is 57.8%, now my friend’s argument is that this is not important, the price to performance difference is not as important as the performance difference and that is the reason he would choose the i7 over an AMD. My reason for picking an AMD is that if I am going to spend an extra 57% I want at least an extra 57% percent return in performance gain; instead I only get 21%.

Now I don’t want to get into a debate over which is really better AMD or Intel, ATi or nVidia, because to tell the truth I don’t care about that, I think they are all good and I buy the parts that I think will make me happy, after all it is me that I am buying it for. If can get 80fps in a game an increase to 96fps won’t make a big difference to me, just so long as I am getting a decent frame rate with high settings at the highest resolution my screen can handle, then I have a system that makes the games I want to play perfectly playable.

What do you guys think? Do you say best performance at any cost? Or are you more for balancing costs with performance?

** I wanted to post in the PC forum but that option was not available **

This is a strange blog really, and I don’t want it start any flame wars, I would really like it to turn into a healthy debate, I want to start with some scene setting though and then I want to move on to ask a question, please try and stay with me if you’re interested in where this might go.

The Scene:

You are in a supermarket buying a loaf of bread and you see they have introduced a new size loaf that offers you extra bread, your normal loaf costs 1.00 (pick your currency) the new bigger loaf will cost you 1.57. Essentially you are facing a 21% increase in volume for a 57% increase in price. If both the smaller and larger loaf of bread were exactly the same brand then I think most people would not be tempted by such a proposition. If the bigger loaf was a better premium brand against the standard loaf then I think some people might be tempted while others would consider the bread to be less important than the quality of filling they use to make their sandwiches. Personally I’m a fillings person, premium bread with a plain filling is ok, but plain bread with a premium filling is better.

That’s it, that’s my case, so what am I talking about? I used bread as I have yet to come across a bread based flame war and more or less everyone I know, knows what it is.

A friend, someone who’s opinion I hold in high regard for most PC related matters said I should change my AMD CPU for an Intel CPU, but I see the benefits in the same light as I see the argument for paying 57% more money to get a 21% bigger loaf. Yes, I agree that the Intel is the Premium brand, and this is confirmed by CPU World who conducted 35 bench tests in which the i7 came out on top in every single one. The results were shown as the winning score being rated at 100% and then the next score shown as a percentage of the winning score. Of course 35 scores of 100 when expressed as an average is not surprisingly still 100% so I will look at the average score of the AMD which topped out at 98.9% and achieved a minimum score of 48%, the average over the 35 tests was 78.6% meaning on average the i7 outperformed the Phenom by 21.4%.

The i7 2600k retails in the UK for £236.60 and the 1100T retails for £149.94 which is a difference of £86.61, that difference expressed as a percentage increase over the AMD price is 57.8%, now my friend’s argument is that this is not important, the price to performance difference is not as important as the performance difference and that is the reason he would choose the i7 over an AMD. My reason for picking an AMD is that if I am going to spend an extra 57% I want at least an extra 57% percent return in performance gain; instead I only get 21%.

Now I don’t want to get into a debate over which is really better AMD or Intel, ATi or nVidia, because to tell the truth I don’t care about that, I think they are all good and I buy the parts that I think will make me happy, after all it is me that I am buying it for. If can get 80fps in a game an increase to 96fps won’t make a big difference to me, just so long as I am getting a decent frame rate with high settings at the highest resolution my screen can handle, then I have a system that makes the games I want to play perfectly playable.

What do you guys think? Do you say best performance at any cost? Or are you more for balancing costs with performance?

It doesn't matter if its bread, shoes or cars. People that generally don't care about it would pay for the bare minimum just because they know they are better off with something then nothing. Then there are those that care enough about the product they are about to buy, and see even though it cost more, its worth it, because they care about it. 

Do you want to make a delicious sandwich or just a piece of toast?

When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much.

Some ppl doesn't want the bigger fish, they feel full with a smaller fish. (for those who can't logically understand metaphors, it means some ppl wants more to be full even if it's the same type of dinner and just a smaller fish is good enough for dinner) That's okay, but don't say it's not worth it.

Also it's about bottlenecks which you didn't mention, you know your not getting the full potential of your framerates with an X4 phenom, especially when you own even more powerful videocards like a dual gpu HD 6990 or two hd 6970. With the intel, there is no bottlenecking, you get every last frame that's advertised in most reviews, not with the amd stuff. 21% is still a big difference, having more value doesn't make the product better. You are 21% (I think the number is higher) bottlenecked at least. A fifth of your framerate potential is gone. So if your videocard the hd6990 can run at a 100 frames per second, what you automatically lose like 21 frames so you get 79 at most? What about if you overclock the i7 2600k to like 4.5Ghz or higher? You will get like more of a boost. What will the ivy bridge do? maybe 35% higher in frames? That's not 50% higher, so it's not worth it? Technology takes time to move forward and you get what you paid for with the X4 phenom.

Sometimes driving a civic is good enough for most ppl, but don't say driving a sports car isn't worth it. Some one once told me, no one in the world would buy amd if they had enough money. If they did, they will get intel. If they can't afford it, then they will get an amd.

You could just get an sandybridge i5 2500k and overclock it, it will beat every phenom X4 out there by quite a lot regardless. Overclock it and you get a great valued cpu. It's more bottlenecked than the i7, but you get your value because it smokes the X4 phenom. It's around the same prices as the X6 phenom which is slower than the X4 benchmarkwise. Amd doesn't care about being the best, they can't compete in that arena, so they hype their value per dollar, which is a gimmick.

What about metro 2033, for a gtx 580, this reduction in bottleneck might make the difference between over 30 frames or under it averagely. Also for the witcher 2, maybe you need all the frames you can get. Overclocking will give you more and overclocking a phenom isn't even going to get you near the i5 2600k.

That loaf of bread argument does not work on technology of any kind.

The difference isn't just a matter of bit and bites, but that intel is almost always the lead hardware that games are designed around, so you will always get a better performance and less chances of things going wrong because of it. While right now an extra 10-15 FPS might not seem like much, but 3-4 years down the line when the computer starts to get long in the tooth that extra 10-15 FPS can mean the difference between upgrading now or 6-12 months from now.

Let's take those same percentages, but apply them to your likelihood of dying during surgery. That 57% price increase would be absolutely worth it right? It's all about how much you value the benefit, not about how it scales with price.

EDIT: Also, you prolly aren't going to buy two processors, but you could easily buy two loaves of bread...so your analogy is a little flawed.

That doesn't seem like a good trade.
57% for 57% is better

I would definitely be willing to pay about the same for overall better performance. The 2500K outperforms the 1100T in pretty much every benchmark (39/40 according to Anandtech) and can be had for around the same price (~  £163 for both according to Amazon UK). In general I definitely care about balancing costs with performance, but I didn't feel, for instance, that spending $100 more for the 2600K vs the 2500K was significant enough to not get the superior  processor. If it were $250 more, I would have probably reconsidered though.

price vs. performance never scales linearly.  The higher up on the price/performance curve you go the less your returns are.  On the lower end you might find parts that give you 2x the performance for leas than 2x the cost.   (like if you compare your 1100T to an i3 or something).

Also keep in mind that the processors usefulness is dependent on how often you use it. If you are firing it up once a day to check email, no big deal. If you are suing your computer constantly (like me) a faster processor will save you shitloads of time.

Yeah but you ignored my example of metro 2033 on a gtx 580. With a phenom it's less than 30, with a i7 2600k it's over 30 averagely (DX11 tessellation, DOF on, very high settings, full AA). So that's a better example. If you have a problem with the i7, an i5 2500k if you overclock the hell out of it is great value compared to X4 phenom, which is a very old cpu btw, so it's really cheap. Even most core 2 quads can out bench it. Look I say the i7 2600k is where the line should be drawn, anything higher is pointless. Your not getting any bottlenecks for the framerates anymore. Also you should see the i7 2600k overclocked, rather than only relying on stock clocks, you get a free boost in frames again.

I had two gtx 460 in sli before on of them fried. That's gtx 580 power but more. But you have a videocard that's like double of the price as mine (hd6990) and your only getting like 35% more performance than that. Two gtx 570 can outbench it. So are you saying it's not worth it? I don't think so. There is a premium for the highest performance thing on the market until other components drives down the price that are more powerful. Amd doesn't want to compete, they can't, so they gimp themselves with the value card.

Ati cards are like cheaper than nvidia, but nvidia cost more and give you 20% more performance with other things like physX and stuff. Don't say it's not worth it, you get good drivers, a great product for a higher price. It's about strategy, amd's strategy is value, not top performance. Just because you don't want to pay more, doesn't mean value trumps performance.

Also 21% more frames, might make the difference between the lowest frames over 60 (maxed out with full settings and AA at 60 frames), or under that.

Some ppl doesn't want the bigger fish, they feel full with a smaller fish.

@spazmaster666: I didn't realise that the i5 was so closely mathed to the 1100T in price, that might be worth considering, the only reason I picked the 1100T and the 2600K is that they seem to be best in breed for AMD and Intel respectively. If it was a linear relationship I guess I would be asking at what point should I stop moving higher on the line, as it is it would plot more as a curve and I usually prefer to buy before the curve peaks and then upgrade at a later point when the hardware I have is starting to fail to deliver.

The bread scenario bares no relevance to the graphics card dilemma because in the real world, the more you buy, the cheaper you get each individual item (bulk buying)

I always base my purchases on the budget I have in mind, and then I look for the sweet spot for each component that fits that budget. AMD or Intel, ATI or Nvidia, ultimately doesn't make a lick of difference to me.
Same when I'm asked by friends or relatives to build them one.

I am hoping for a comeback from AMD with Bulldozer, though. At this point, they really need to catch up. They can only compete on price for so long before Intel also starts dropping prices low enough that it doesn't make sense to buy AMD anymore. At this point, it almost seems like without ATI, AMD would not have survived.

I buy AMD because they're reasonably competitive, and the depreciation of the processor is likely less which allows me to buy my next one. I couldn't give a flying f**k about whether I'm getting 52 FPS or 60, it won't affect my ability to be shit at playing games :) So long as the games are comfortable to play then I'm happy. It's worth remembering that decent motherboards designed for Intel chips tend to attract a heavy price premium as well.

@spazmaster666: I didn't realise that the 990X was a Sandybridge CPU.

@TheKeyboardDemon said:

@spazmaster666: I didn't realise that the 990X was a Sandybridge CPU.

It's not Sandy Bridge, but it's the fastest Gulftown available and while not as good as the 2600K in single or dual-threaded apps (like most games), it definitely beats the 2600K in highly-threaded apps and hence it would preferable in apps like Premiere Pro, 3DS Max, Mainconcept, etc. Basically, if an application is able to utilize all 12 threads then the 990X beats the 2600K hands down.

1. SB 2600/2700K are not the equivalent CPUs to the 980/990x Hex Cores. The LGA 2011 SB Core i7 Extreme CPUs will be.
2. Many of the apps you mention will eventually render faster on consumer GPUs rather than CPUs due to the extensive parallel nature of their workloads.  Even now, prosumer 3D cards such as Tesla render that stuff faster than most CPUs can even at the highest ends of the market.
   

@SeriouslyNow: I can't find anything about the SB2700K right now but was thinking about how much it would cost to swap my rig over from my X4 to an i7, this is what I have come up with:

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 @ £143.62
CPU: i7 2600k (OEM) @ £225.80
RAM: 8gb Corsair Vengence 1600mhz DDR3 (2x 4gb Dual Channel) @ £79.34

Total price: £448.76

I estimate that I could get around £200 to £250 if I sold my CPU, Mobo and RAM on eBay so it would make it a £200 to £250 upgrade, but I think it is worth taking the time to wait and see what announcements are made at Computex and CES.

It also might be worth making some other changes too:
SSD: OCZ 60gb Agility 3 SSD @ £101.52
HDD: 1tb WD Caviar Black 64mb Cache @ £64.55
Case: Silverstone Raven RV03 @ £127.16For some reason I really fancy the idea of getting 4x 2gb of memory with the tracer LEDs that flash on the top of the RAM but I don't know if that's really worth it.

@spazmaster666: Presumably that means I would be able to migrate my system to the new Ivy bridge mobo in 8 to 12 months for a smaller performance increase and then upgrade the CPU at a later date? Or have I miss understood what you meant?

In the bread analogy you likely have more than one slot for bread in your house. You've only got one slot for a CPU on your computer.

In the bread analogy you likely have more than one slot for bread in your house. You've only got one slot for a CPU on your computer.

Just make this upgrade during the ivy bridge processor. I think there are two versions, 2011 version or 1155. If someone said it's like 30% more powerful than sandybridge, then it might be just the power you are looking for putting it like 40-50% or more above the X4. When you move to intel, I bet you that your hd6990 won't stutter like you told me before and you'll be suprised at all the frames you weren't getting before. If they have a pci-e 3.0, that's good for your dual gpu I suppose. In that combination I doubt there will be any bottlenecking for your overly powerful gpu though the slot. But still a gpu can only like transfer so much power, even pci-e and pci-e 2.0 isn't like that much of a difference unless you are using three monitors or something.

@spazmaster666: I think Thunderbolt promiss of higher bandwidth connections for devices is let down by a lack of devices that can fully make use of the available bandwidth and I've not read anything that says they are coming in the next few years. We can already use interfaces that will carry upto 6gb/s yet all the hdds I've seen are limited and can't even manage to transfer data at a rate that uses even 10% of that available bandwidth. Even with the SSD I picked above it is only just passing the 500mb/s read speed which it would easily manage on a 3gb/s connection. PCI-e 3.0 sounds more interesting, right now the 6990 can drive the PCI-e 2.0/2.1 slot to the limits of it's bandwidth capabilities (as I understand it) so I wonder if doubling that available bandwidth will have ATi and nVidia making single cards with quad CrossfireX and SLI like a single unit made up of 2 HD6990s or GTX590s? I wonder how that would bench with 2 of those in a rig?

Well someone I know might be interested in my AMD rig, he wants a basic PC for web and office use and likes the look of the case. He will use the IGP which is fine for all he wants and might be happy to spend about £400 on the rig, so I will need to find a HDD, a replacement PSU and get him an OEM copy of Windows and Office to get it running for him. That will mean I am going to need a replacement optical drive (I might consider a combi Blue Ray and DVD-RW this time if anyone know of 1 in black with a red LED on the front) and I might get an XFX 850 watt PSU so I can stick some red cathodes in there too and still have power of OC.

Well someone I know might be interested in my AMD rig, he wants a basic PC for web and office use and likes the look of the case. He will use the IGP which is fine for all he wants and might be happy to spend about £400 on the rig, so I will need to find a HDD, a replacement PSU and get him an OEM copy of Windows and Office to get it running for him. That will mean I am going to need a replacement optical drive (I might consider a combi Blue Ray and DVD-RW this time if anyone know of 1 in black with a red LED on the front) and I might get an XFX 850 watt PSU so I can stick some red cathodes in there too and still have power of OC.

@spazmaster666: Oh, ok.Also another question, the RAM I picked is not on the QVL and Corsair don't have the mobo listed on their memory finder page. I need to find a suitable dual channel ram that has 8gb of black or black and red modules. Does anyone know of any? I find reading QVLs to be harder than revising for exams!

I know we're talking about CPUs here, but in general my feeling is that I'd pay a premium price for the premium product.  Even if the increase in quality isn't directly proportional with the increase in cost.  Though there are all sorts of exceptions.

Top of my wish list at the moment would be a Republic of Gamer motherboard that supports the z68 chipset, but annoyingly ASUS only have this in an mATX format. Has anyone seen anything to indicate ASUS might have a full ATX z68 mobo coming soon?
 
Next thing would be an i7 2700k or 2800k, but I have no idea if these will be coming at all so if anyone knows about when these are likely to hit I'd love to know about that too? My guess is that 1 of these will launch when the Bulldozer is annouced in the first or second week of June.