Hi,

In talking with a friend today, he mentioned that though Intel is a faster chip, AMD (in his opinion) has proved stronger for multi-tasking and with less "hiccups" in information processing than Intel.

What is your (supported) thoughts regarding this theory? The answer may determine which laptop I'm going to buy, which is between these two models: http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/ [...] %26quot%3B

Thanks,
Shad

It's more what you install that is important than what's in the laptop. Try and get more ram (2 gigs would be best), do a clean install with the recovery CD, install drivers & select software. Not everything which will probably includes auto-start apps. Optimize your windows. Uninstall unneeded programs.

That's a good point. Thanks for reminding me.

So in your thinking, cpu brand is not relevant if you have your programs situation in order?

Can I get some other people to add their comments to this thread?

Thanks again,
Shad

Your "Friend" is full of it.

Simply have him provide reputable benchmarks/tests that show the AMD does better in multi-processor stuff.

It's just not true.
The AMD is definitely cheaper so that is a plus.

If you want to Game, Intel with the 8600 is the only real choice.
The 8400GPU is totally worthless.

PS - Goto http://www.dell.com/outlet.



Inspiron 9400/E1705
(System Identifier: EJD1YVJ0)


Inspiron 9400/E1705 Notebook: Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5300 (2MB Cache/1.73GHz/533MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista Business

System Price : $979.00

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Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista Business
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Memory
2 GB DDR2 SDRAM 677MHz (2 DIMMs)
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Hard Disk Drive
250 GB EIDE Hard Drive (5400RPM)
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Video
256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS
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Scratch & Dent
Scratch & Dent
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Software Upgrade
Roxio Creator 9.0 Premier
Microsoft Works 8.5
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Base
Inspiron 9400/E1705 Notebook: Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5300 (2MB Cache/1.73GHz/533MHz FSB)
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Media Bay
8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
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Network Interface Card
Intel Pro Wireless 3945
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NoteBook Screen
17 inch Wide Screen XGA+ Notebook Screen with TrueLife
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hardware Upgrade
90W AC Adapter
9 Cell Battery

Thanks for the replies.

Your friend is quite right: C2D are faster, but X2 are best in process sharing between the two processors.
This is not tha same as saying "AMD is best in executing multiple applications at the same time, it's best at executing multi-threaded applications that launch several tasks in parallel in order to speed up computations".
In real life, it means heavy load DB, professional 3D rendering, simulation tools and compilers.

For every day use at home or office Intel is actually faster: we have C2D machines for every day use and X2 Athlon/Opty servers for muti-threded heavy load applications.
As a rule of thumb for evety day use go for Intel with a lot of RAM if you run Windows (especially Vista), you can half the RAM if you go with *nix.

Dont fill this poor kids head with AMD fangirl info... Intel beats the pants off an AMD chip in ANY threaded multimedia application. AMD is good for DBs... and thats about the extent of what their useful for in the professional world.

Yes, but only if you are talking about a dual-CPU (Opteron 22xx/23xx vs. Xeon 51xx/53xx) setup. The Core 2 Duos are a monolithic die just like the Athlon/Turion 64 X2s and do all of their core-core communication on die. The Core 2 Duos actually have a faster core-core throughput since the shared L2 is faster than the X2s' write-to-the-IMC data transfers.

Again, you're talking about server hardware, which is Xeon and Opteron, not Athlon 64 and Core 2. Those do have to communicate between different sockets and the different platforms do make a performance difference. But the single-socket dual-core CPUs are pretty much the same when it comes to running multiple tasks in parallel because they are both one-CPU-per-IMC, core-core transfers happen on die, uniform-memory-access setups. Sure, the Core 2 Duos are more cache-size-sensitive and the X2s are more sensitive to RAM speed and timings, but by and large, scaling is rather similar. Your OS makes a bigger difference in how well multithreaded or multiple concurrent programs run than what brand of chip you have.

You'd not see that much difference in scaling and heavy-load tolerance if you replaced the X2s with C2Ds. Depending on the workload, the Core 2 Duos should be faster. The Opterons are a different story and I'll agree with you on that, but it is a different ballgame than the C2Ds and X2s.

Also, your RAM demands will vary widely depending on what you want to do. Just saying that you can put half the RAM in a *nix machine as one running Vista isn't really all that accurate. Yes, Vista is a real RAM pig and nobody is going to deny that, neither are they going to deny that the *nixes are much leaner. I've run many OSes and can say that you want 2 GB on a 32-bit Vista laptop or corporate desktop and 3 GB on a 32-bit Vista gaming or going-to-push-it-hard desktop. 512 MB is fine for a 32-bit *nix laptop or corporate desktop and add 50% if you're using 64-bit. I'd recommend a gig if you're running a 32-bit *nix desktop that you intend to push hard and 1.5 GB if it's a 64-bit machine. The usage matters pretty heavily as you're not likely to be running all that much besides the OS on a laptop or corporate desktop- web browsers, e-mail clients, and office programs aren't *that* big of RAM pigs. Games and professional-strength programs can be though. I personally have four gigs on my 64-bit Linux workstation as I sometimes have to run some very big simulations that need all that and then some. My Vista x86 laptop hasn't touched its third gig of RAM yet as I've never seen it use more than about 1.5 GB.

Thanks for all of the feedback everyone and thank you to MU for clarifying the differences and how a lot of amd vs intel info is related to server configurations.

Peace