The Intel core technology processors (ivy league) are kicking the latest AMD technology (bulldozer) butt in every hardware review I read. However, AMD prices are extremely competitive. Compare the following 2 mobo+cpu bundles offered by an online retailer:

Core™ i7-3770K Processor (ivy bridge) on Asus P8Z77-V PRO for $519.99

AMD FX-8320 Processor (bulldozer) on Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 for $319.99

That's a $200 difference!! True there is an ~$60 difference in the price of the mobos alone and that's because the mobo for the Intel has PCI-E 3.0 and USB 3.0 whereas the mobo for the AMD is PCI-E 2.0 and USB 2.0. My thinking is 2.0 is plenty fast enough for what I want to do.

The AMD is an 8 core device whereas the Intel is 4 core with hyper-threading which gives 8 virtual cores. The clock speeds are similar. Yet the i7 trounces the AMD on every test they mention in every hardware test and review article I have since bulldozer became available.

OK, Intel beats the AMD in the tests they use in those articles. So what, I don't game or edit video or do most of the other stuff they do in those tests. What I am interested in is how AMD and Intel compare when 8 science apps from BOINC projects are running... does Intel still rule in that situation? You see AMD's response to the unfavorable test reviews is that the apps used in the tests do not multi-thread the way they need to to take full advantage of bulldozer technology. If that is true then perhaps 8 separate CPU intense apps running simultaneously would suit bulldozer technology. In other words, maybe AMD would beat Intel for BOINCing. Does anybody know? Would anybody care to pretend they know? Does anybody care?

The reason I ask is that I need to get a Christmas present for the nicest person I know (that would be me) and he wants a hot new BOINCing machine so please help me decide which one of the above bundles would be best.

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"Windows" -- an American English word, meaning "A real operating system is too hard for me."

I'm unable to make a comparison with the Intel setup but I run a bulldozer that might at least give you some numbers to look at.


http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/user/detail/41192/charts

There's my charts and here's my computer setup:

AMD FX-8120
Core Speed 4310.1 MHz
Memory Type DDR3
Memory Size 16384 MBytes
Channels Dual
*Part number BLS4G3D1609DS1S00.
Mainboard Model SABERTOOTH 990FX (0x0000045B - 0xEA31EDC0)
Display adapter 0
Name AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
Memory size 1024 MB
GPU ref clock 27000
Windows Version Microsoft Windows 7 (6.1) Home Premium Edition 64-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)



I like the computer a ton. My main usage is to run my boinc numbers. It does run hot. Hot. I'm thinking about liquid cooling because even sitting in an open door with 30° F air coming in the CPU still runs at 70° C with boinc on at 100%.

I love it, wouldn't change my decision to go AMD with this solution even though the temps run alarmingly high.

I'm unable to make a comparison with the Intel setup but I run a bulldozer that might at least give you some numbers to look at.


http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/user/detail/41192/charts

Thanks for taking the time to answer but unfortunately those numbers are BOINC credits which means they're meaningless, a complete waste of bandwidth and server storage space, no good for anything. They have about as much relevance to the question (or any question) as the daily stock quotes do.

I'm looking for drag race type of comparison. One i7 versus one bulldozer, similar clock, both running the same task... who finishes first? Repeat with several tasks from the same application/project, repeat with several different projects.

The problem with a drag race scenario is that some science apps never run the same way twice given the same input parameters so some apps wouldn't constitute a true "drag strip" to run the race on. The strip would be a guarter mile for one CPU but end up a half mile for the other.

I might use the info boinctsats has on record for you to pore through tasks you've run at your projects and look for tasks where you wingman was a similarly clocked ivy/sandy bridge Intel. No wait, I've got it... a script that crawls through a project's user results pages and finds WUs that have been sent to a bulldozer and an ivy/sandy bridge and then saves the run time numbers for comparison. Projects that have an initial replication of 2 or more.

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"Windows" -- an American English word, meaning "A real operating system is too hard for me."