Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2020 7:42 am Post subject: Intel vs. AMD laptop CPU. Business & media mixed use
I am in the market for a new laptop, and surprisingly, I keep hearing positive things about AMD chips. So much so that some people have commented on Intel laptop reviews that they wish it had a Ryzen.
I wrote off AMD as an inferior brand not worth purchasing years ago and haven’t thought twice about them since, but now I am looking at these as an option. Are these processors actually decent now? Actually can outperform (non-tiger lake) intel for some uses? What are the models to look for on the Ryzen line?
Specifically the Ryzen chips vs intel i5 evo and intel core i5 on Surface and Yoga.
Main uses will be lots of simultaneous excel spreadsheets, lots of simultaneous internet tabs, and email tabs. No gaming. Also running Netflix or YouTube regularly in the background. I do like my computer to feel snappy, if there small delays consistently it would drive me crazy, so I’m staying away from the bottom of the line 4GB windows machines. 8gb/256GB are probably the minimum for me.
The MacBook Air and Surface laptop would be the competitors to beat, and they’re $999-$1199 depending on the configuration.
I haven't taken a close look of late, but here's my $0.02:
The incremental difference between the Intel and AMD chips is relatively small. Given the number of tasks you're running and the video demands, I'd pay more attention to the amount of memory and video processor. Those are far more likely to be your processing bottlenecks.
RAM and SSD size are the main factors i'd look for if you're not gaming. AMD is better for multithreaded performance, and Intel is better for single-threaded performance as far as i know.
Joined: 10 Apr 2001 Posts: 65135 Location: Orange County, CA
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:46 am Post subject:
AMD made a big leap within the past year. I used to hate those chips. Now Intel is the one trying to play catch up. _________________ Resident Car Nut.
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2020 5:24 pm Post subject: Re: Intel vs. AMD laptop CPU. Business & media mixed use
dont_be_a_wuss wrote:
I am in the market for a new laptop, and surprisingly, I keep hearing positive things about AMD chips. So much so that some people have commented on Intel laptop reviews that they wish it had a Ryzen.
I wrote off AMD as an inferior brand not worth purchasing years ago and haven’t thought twice about them since, but now I am looking at these as an option. Are these processors actually decent now? Actually can outperform (non-tiger lake) intel for some uses? What are the models to look for on the Ryzen line?
Specifically the Ryzen chips vs intel i5 evo and intel core i5 on Surface and Yoga.
Main uses will be lots of simultaneous excel spreadsheets, lots of simultaneous internet tabs, and email tabs. No gaming. Also running Netflix or YouTube regularly in the background. I do like my computer to feel snappy, if there small delays consistently it would drive me crazy, so I’m staying away from the bottom of the line 4GB windows machines. 8gb/256GB are probably the minimum for me.
The MacBook Air and Surface laptop would be the competitors to beat, and they’re $999-$1199 depending on the configuration.
Thanks in advance
Intel sat on their laurels for almost a decade. AMD was close to death and had to make some hard decisions to save the company, one of which was to go fabless. Since AMD doesn't have to build fabs and outsource it a company whose main job is to build fabs they were able to piggyback off their latest manufacturing tech. Now AMD and Apple are reaping the benefits of this and are going to 7nm and 5nm while Intel is stuck at 10nm. So whatever performance gains Intel has doing everything in house they lose in performance being stuck at designing their CPUs at bigger 10nm. The performance difference between Intel and AMD cpu's are basically negligible now and the bigger difference will be what type of graphics processor your computer has.
I haven't taken a close look of late, but here's my $0.02:
The incremental difference between the Intel and AMD chips is relatively small. Given the number of tasks you're running and the video demands, I'd pay more attention to the amount of memory and video processor. Those are far more likely to be your processing bottlenecks.
You're completely right that he's probably not going to notice an iota of difference performance wise. If you don't game or do some serious multi core applications, you won't notice at all.
Intel is really power hungry and runs extremely hot in comparison to Ryzen 3000 and 5000 chips. In a vacuum, I can't see one reason to recommend Intel over AMD (or Apple's M1 chip).
I'm building a 3700X computer at the moment and it's my first AMD cpu (on a desktop) since the original Athlon in 1999. Been on Intel from then until now.
In any event, I can't overstate how bad of a shape Intel as a company is in. They're still stuck on 14nm on desktop. If they keep manufacturing in house as opposed to AMD that uses TSMC, they're doomed unless they have a rabbit up their sleeve. They were aiming for 10nm and still don't have a desktop CPU range that uses it. Unless they fundamentally change their business model (like no longer being a foundry for themselves), I can't see how they close the gap in the next decade. Meanwhile, TSMC is closing in on a 2nm process.
I know so many IT guys that plan to move their platforms over to AMD when the time will come to upgrade. Likewise, this round's AMD chips are flying off the shelves because demand is so high. I've honestly never seen anything like this...Microcenter shelves in the DIY section were half empty. All the good stuff was gone. Stacks of Intel chips available. Not a single 5000 series chip...I had to settle for a 3700x.
*edit* - Duh, lakers80 already covered most of this. _________________ KOBE
I can't see one reason to recommend Intel over AMD (or Apple's M1 chip).
Just picked up an M1 MacBook Air this week. I haven't tried pushing it too hard yet on anything that intensive, but I have never in my life seen battery life like this on a laptop. The first day I had it I unplugged it at noon, used it all day including a 3 hour zoom meeting, woke up and used it all morning and about 24 hours since I had unplugged it I was at 53%. _________________ 14-5-3-12
I can't see one reason to recommend Intel over AMD (or Apple's M1 chip).
Just picked up an M1 MacBook Air this week. I haven't tried pushing it too hard yet on anything that intensive, but I have never in my life seen battery life like this on a laptop. The first day I had it I unplugged it at noon, used it all day including a 3 hour zoom meeting, woke up and used it all morning and about 24 hours since I had unplugged it I was at 53%.
It's bat-(bleep) crazy how efficient it is. _________________ KOBE
I can't see one reason to recommend Intel over AMD (or Apple's M1 chip).
Just picked up an M1 MacBook Air this week. I haven't tried pushing it too hard yet on anything that intensive, but I have never in my life seen battery life like this on a laptop. The first day I had it I unplugged it at noon, used it all day including a 3 hour zoom meeting, woke up and used it all morning and about 24 hours since I had unplugged it I was at 53%.
Apple has huge $$$$ behind them now and I have no doubt they can hire the best engineers that they couldn't in their past efforts in the computing world. I have no doubts the next generations of the M series chips will have even more performance gains in addition to being efficient.
I can't see one reason to recommend Intel over AMD (or Apple's M1 chip).
Just picked up an M1 MacBook Air this week. I haven't tried pushing it too hard yet on anything that intensive, but I have never in my life seen battery life like this on a laptop. The first day I had it I unplugged it at noon, used it all day including a 3 hour zoom meeting, woke up and used it all morning and about 24 hours since I had unplugged it I was at 53%.
The MacBook Air looks like a clear winner. Is there any noticeable difference in the missing 8th Gpu core? I don’t think I could notice something like that.
Ideally I would have two new laptops, but one will have to do for now. Best Buy has open box MacBook airs for $850, then the two windows options are:
Surface Laptop 3 with 10th gen core i5, 8gb ram 256SSD for under $700
Lenovo Yoga 7i with 11th gen i5 evo, 12gb ram, 512 SSD, only 1080p resolution for under $600
I’m currently using a surface pro 3 so I might try to extend its life and go with the MacBook Air. To wait for the new surface laptop on comparable specs would be like $1300, so the 10th gen processor for $700 looks like more than a fair discount. I’m not finding many deals on AMD laptops.
There is pretty much no reason to buy Intel CPUs right now if you don't have a very specific task that Intel excels. Whichever that would be right now...
I can't see one reason to recommend Intel over AMD (or Apple's M1 chip).
Just picked up an M1 MacBook Air this week. I haven't tried pushing it too hard yet on anything that intensive, but I have never in my life seen battery life like this on a laptop. The first day I had it I unplugged it at noon, used it all day including a 3 hour zoom meeting, woke up and used it all morning and about 24 hours since I had unplugged it I was at 53%.
The MacBook Air looks like a clear winner. Is there any noticeable difference in the missing 8th Gpu core? I don’t think I could notice something like that.
Ideally I would have two new laptops, but one will have to do for now. Best Buy has open box MacBook airs for $850, then the two windows options are:
Surface Laptop 3 with 10th gen core i5, 8gb ram 256SSD for under $700
Lenovo Yoga 7i with 11th gen i5 evo, 12gb ram, 512 SSD, only 1080p resolution for under $600
I’m currently using a surface pro 3 so I might try to extend its life and go with the MacBook Air. To wait for the new surface laptop on comparable specs would be like $1300, so the 10th gen processor for $700 looks like more than a fair discount. I’m not finding many deals on AMD laptops.
Looking beyond the specs, the Air has nearly 20 hours of battery life. That's simply bonkers. For your use, I think that's the best choice assuming you're not adamant about sticking to Windows OS. _________________ KOBE
I can't see one reason to recommend Intel over AMD (or Apple's M1 chip).
Just picked up an M1 MacBook Air this week. I haven't tried pushing it too hard yet on anything that intensive, but I have never in my life seen battery life like this on a laptop. The first day I had it I unplugged it at noon, used it all day including a 3 hour zoom meeting, woke up and used it all morning and about 24 hours since I had unplugged it I was at 53%.
Apple has huge $$$$ behind them now and I have no doubt they can hire the best engineers that they couldn't in their past efforts in the computing world. I have no doubts the next generations of the M series chips will have even more performance gains in addition to being efficient.
It's good that we have more competitors. Intel got fat and lazy. Since the original I5/I7, every progressive year has been a small, incremental improvement for them. It really is do or die time for them. I can't see a pathway where they can catch up. _________________ KOBE
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