50 replies to this topic

[xboxrulz]

Well, here at Astahost, it's a no-brainer that most of us are in the know-how of electronic equipment or just professional in the electronics, computers or design field (for all you artists out there).

However, one debate is surprisingly never debated in these forums... Now we can!

Cast your vote who you think is better and what you use. Also, remember to post to back your reasons!

I vote POWER/PowerPC because they have been traditionally the processor architecture for high performance chips like BlueGene/L and is the basis for the Cell processor. However, since there are no longer any PowerPC processors in the desktop market (screw you Apple for going Intel). Most machines in my house uses AMD because they are the ones who can balance performance, price and low heat output. We are in the process of phasing out Intel because they don't meet our price/performance/heat ratio.

xboxrulz

[Quatrux]

I agree that most of the desktops now are x86, but for a lot of people when the speeds of cpus are like that, noone really cares to much.. even though x86 offers really bad assembler construction, everyone is using it, as I know on some portable devices and different other devices, Z80 is still being used as it's cheap, much better while writing assembly and so on, even though it's I think over 20-30 years old.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z80

PPC are great, G4.. G5 had some bad aspects, even though PPC is much better than x86, it's just that it's not used like x86 and I guess it's what it makes hard for most developers and production.. But there are computers/boards which still were developed and used for different purposes after Apple moved to x86, even though they aren't so popular, but usually small, can run Linux PPC and other stuff.. But as I know PPC are off with desktop market, so for Operating systems which still is using PPC it's hard times, due to it's hard to find components for new boards, northbridges and so on..

Also lets don't forget the dying market of Amiga OS, OS4 and MorphOS which are using newly developed (but what I've read having bugs, I guess because of low budget) PPC boards to run the OS as it's only PPC, where classic Amiga boards are using m68k (Motorolla 68k) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68k which also had really well developed assembly instructions..

I myself have a PPC Board called Efika from Freescale, which can run MorphOS, Linux PPC, but I don't really have much time to play with it now.. It's so quiet, because it doesn't need a cooler, but todays better laptops are also really quiet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efika

PPC processors are good, but the logic they used marketing it was stupid, as usually good things vanishes leaving the bad? I guess everyone who still is using PPC should find a path and move to x86 if they want to survive, I mean developers, opearating systems which are in the desktop market :|

[xboxrulz]

I would want an EFIKA if the system was faster, 400 MHz can't even deal with most tasks now-a-days as technology zooms madly. I don't think anyone would bother any processor under 1 GHz.

xboxrulz

[Quatrux]

Yeah, it depends what you want to do with it, it was some time ago, several years even.. can't remember.. but it's definitely over 3-4 years

[yordan]

I also vote for PPC for professional use, for all servers like database servers or web servers.
Small blade PPC AIX systems for small applications, rack-mounted high-end AIX servers.
Remember that AIX PPC systems are the only computers having up to 64 processors on the same motherboard, accessing the same disks and memory. For Oracle databases this is priceless, sharing data between processes is a memory-to-memory interchange. These system are the biggest in the world today, and they use exactly the same operating system as the small desktops the developers use.

[wutske]

Every architecture has it's postive and negative sides, it depends on where you want to use them.

[xboxrulz]

So far we have unianimously agree PowerPC is better lol.

xboxrulz

[Atomic0]

I prefer the x86 architecture since all the CPUs I have bought have run on the x86 architecture. However, there isn't really a 'best' processor architecture as different processor architecture are used on different platforms that have different overall uses (e.g. specialised server CPUs on blade servers, supercomputer processing).

I am currently using a computer fitted with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 CPU. There wasn't really a choice for processor architecture, since most desktop motherboards are only designed for x86 processors, though I did prefer an Intel CPU over an AMD CPU. I generally tended to avoid buying an AMD processor or an ATI graphics card, since I preferred a mainstream and better supported brands of Intel and Nvidia.

I suppose PowerPC processor were quite popular because Apple notebooks and desktops were using processors that ran on the PowerPC architecture. However, since Apple switched to the x86 processor architecture with Intel CPUs as the only option, there has been a large decline in the proportion of PowerPC users.

[truefusion]

I stick with AMD: cheap, good and fast. Hard to find those three qualities with Intel, unless you perhaps wait out the prices. I also like the triple core idea, since i find anything greater than three cores a bit exaggerated, at least for desktop—especially for laptop—computers. Unless i'm mistaken, i believe AMD was the first to come out with 64-bit processing, where Intel took from AMD to achieve 64 bit processing. But i heard Intel is working on a processor that'll be really cheap and really fast, but that was through word of mouth and i haven't done any research on it myself. If it's true and it comes out, i'll probably switch to it.

[rockershive]

Take a look at my PC. I carefully choose before I buy. Most hardware are expensive but not worth performing. Share yours too. Currently this machine is Hex-booting (6 OS's installed in 1 80Gb HD). I love AMD. We love AMD.



Visit My Specs

Edited by rockershive, 07 February 2009 - 04:54 AM.

[rnd-am]

Well, I use x86_64=amd64 on both personal workstation (laptop) and servers I use, and I think there's no alas real alternative. May be only celerons  variants for price.

AMD CPU's performanceis too poor, and they are yet pretty hot what concerns working temperature and hence, stability in work

Future and eprspective CPU's I think are, those which will be multicore/ or support massive paralellism

maybe Cell? anyway _now best CPUs are x86_64

[grim reaper1666]

well i prefer AMD processors because they may heat up more than a intel processor but you can get high speed cores at a cheaper price then intel. at my local computer store you can get a AMD hex core for £153 which is clocked at 2.8ghz per core. to me that seems alot better then forking out over £300 on intel processor. AMD understands that if you offer a good processor at a cheaper price then people are going to be more likely of buying it since they want a good processor but they don't want to give intel money which they would much rather use to buy a good graphics card along with the cpu. although in any computer cooling is crucial cpu cores run better at lower temperatures and at those lower tempertures is what you need for overclocking without it you are saying good bye computer.

[manuleka]

in time ARM mobile architecture will dominate the CPU market as Mobile devices increase in share-market... now a days mobile devices outsells PCs...
http://www.pcmag.com...,2379665,00.asp

its interesting that mobile CPUs are increasingly faster and faster, it's a matter of time before they catchup with PC top CPU speeds

Edited by manuleka, 25 January 2012 - 07:52 PM.

[yordan]

its interesting that mobile CPUs are increasingly faster and faster, it's a matter of time before they catchup with PC top CPU speeds

You are partly right.
However, you will hardly find inside a mobile device as much room for cpu's, memory, hard drives, cooling power, as well as a comfortable keyboard and a 22-inch screen.

[manuleka]

You are partly right.
However, you will hardly find inside a mobile device as much room for cpu's, memory, hard drives, cooling power, as well as a comfortable keyboard and a 22-inch screen.

hehe quite true... but look at the powers of todays mobile phones:
my iPhone 4 runs on a 1GHz CPU with 512MB RAM, the 4S packs 2 core 1GHz with a 1GB RAM and the upcoming new Samsung Galaxy S III is to run on 2GB RAM with a 1.5GHz+ "Quadcore" CPU....

compare those to my current PC which runs on a 3GHz P4 and 2GB of Ram...

Edited by manuleka, 25 January 2012 - 11:01 PM.

[yordan]

Huh ? Your comparison is not completely honest. You are comparing the most modern smartphone, with a previous generation PC.
Now the current PC's you buy in a supermarket have 4 ou 8 cpu's, and at least 4 gigs memory and 1 Terabyte disk.

[manuleka]

Huh ? Your comparison is not completely honest. You are comparing the most modern smartphone, with a previous generation PC.
Now the current PC's you buy in a supermarket have 4 ou 8 cpu's, and at least 4 gigs memory and 1 Terabyte disk.

your right... just wanted to point out how quickly mobile devices are getting more powerful...

[Ahsaniqbal111]

I have used both intel and AMD CPUs. The current cpu I have now is an AMD X64. I must say here that so far, I am really impressed with AMD CPUs. Before buying this one, I was really reluctant about AMD. I had read a lot of reviews about AMD before I bought this one (which is my first AMD CPU). The major problem that kept me at a significant distance from AMD was excessive heat production. Intel CPUs are much more efficient in terms of heat production, as compared to the AMD cpus. Not only was it evident in the reviews all over the internet, but I witnessed it myself when I bought my first AMD CPU. It produced much more heat as compared to a similar intel CPU. This thing concerned me because the region I live in has a harsh summer. Temperatures are at the level of 50 degrees celsius in summer, which lasts about 6 months. So buying a CPU wihich produces excessive heat and has a potential to break down in the long summer was the last option for me.
But the price of the AMD CPUs is unbeatable. You can not even thing of buying a comparabel intel CPU in the same price range. But I must say that I am very happy now with my AMD cpu. It does produce a lot of heat and runs at significantly higher temperatures than intel cpu, but the main point is that it can tolerate higher temperatures better than intel CPUs. I can say this because my current AMD cpu runs fluently on 85+ degrees celsius while the previous intel CPU alwas looked like it would just die when I crossed 80 degrees. And as far as my CPU keeps working, I don't have any concern with temperature.
I have not yet seen the hottest summer with my current AMD cpu and I will be able to judge it better after I use it at temperatures above 50 degrees. If it keeps running at the same level of fluency at those high temperatures, I think I would say goodbye permenantly to intel CPUs at these are much expensive.

[manuleka]

i remember when AMD first released their AMD 64 CPUs... they were pretty good and out-performed Intels' (back then) highly clocked CPUs, AMDs 2 GHz CPUs beat Intel's 3GHz... now Intel is pretty much dominating the performance side, so AMD relies on their cheap pricing system

[Ahsaniqbal111]

I think the best thing for intel CPUs is that they are much more efficient than AMD. And this efficiency translates into a lot of things such as less heat generation, greater runing times on battery for laptops, and faster performance. No one can deny that intel are more efficient than AMD but what AMD has done brilliant is that they have reduced the performance and efficiency gap to such a low that you won't even notice it when doing normal stuff. Considering that, the significantly lower prices of amd cpus are unbueatable.