Ah, I remember this question (search back in the archives a bit and you'll find
lots of relevant info from when I was trying to choose a laptop).
I think (though this is not based of anything other than hear-say), that the
A6 and the i3 are probably pretty comparable overall. Looking to laptop-type
applications the graphics is better with the AMD, so I'd go with that;
however, if you're not worried about the graphics, I would seriously consider
an i5 if you can afford (Ebuyer and special offers are good), or one of the
"big" desktop processors (Bulldozer (or even opteron) or i7), if you're not
interested in laptop-type applications.
For top-end stuff, we (at work) find that AMD gives better price-performance if
you can run across many cores, whereas Intel gives fewer, faster cores, at
greater cost. Which is appropriate depends entirely on what you're trying to
do. This seems to hold true across the rest of their product ranges as well.
For most desktop tasks, you won't notice much difference, but faster cores are
probably preferable.
Tim B.
On Tuesday 05 Jun 2012 16:41:04 Dr A. J. Trickett wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Either later this year or next year I may replace my 7 year old desktop
> systems. They are currently running first generation single-core AMD64
> processors with 2 GiB of RAM.
>
> Times clearly have moved on and I am well aware that Intel have caught up
> and overtaken AMD in the raw performance stakes but I'm not interested in
> the fastest, rather the relative merits at the mid to lower end of the
> market.
>
> Does anyone have data on the ralative perfomance of an Intel Core i3 family
> and the AMD A6. For example all other things being equal (which they are
> not, but let's prenend they are) a PC with an AMD A6-3850 (quad core x 2.9
> GHz) and an Intel i3-2130 (dual core x 3.4 GHz) are the same price. Both
> feature on die graphics and can use the same DDR3 RAM upto the same
> maximum.
>
> On paper it looks like the Intel will be faster an single core tasks given
> it's higher clock speed but the AMD should be better when you can spread
> your tasks over processor cores.
>
> Just looking for approximate relative performance opinions on desktop
> computers CPUS againts regular tasks. I'm not playing lots of games,
> rendering 3D images or doing anything heavy duty, I just want a computer
> that is fast today and will remain fast running KDE4/Gnome3 type desktops
> for several years to come.
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