AMD vs. Intel (Why?)

Greetings and salutations! So I made the plunge and have purchased a new desktop computer for the sole purpose of 3D art production and increased rendering speeds. I have yet to receive it however but that's not the manufacturer's fault. Other issues have cropped up that have delayed the assembly of the computer so I will have to wait a bit longer before I can finally put my hands on a brand new rig.

So anyway, it has been 14 years since I bought a desktop computer. It was a first or second generation Dell XPS workstation (I don't remember which, I just remember it was very powerful for its time). However, it has become obsolete since I have gotten my laptop that has updated programs. Unfortunately, the laptop is not powerful enough to run some of the programs I have installed, hence the need for a new desktop. This new desktop contains an 8-core AMD FX-8320, a Radeon R9 270x 2GB graphics card, and 8 GB of DDR3 RAM (the motherboard supports up to 32 GB which I will eventually expand to). The original plan was to get an Intel i7 4790k with the Radeon graphics card but by the time I was going to get the computer that had everything I needed, it sold out and I couldn't find it anymore. I had thought about building the computer myself with the Intel chip set but I just could not find any other builds or bundles that were within my budget like that original computer I was going to get (it was on sale at the time, hence why it sold out; it was an awesome deal for the type of computer it was). So I spent my tax refund money on an 8-core chip set instead because it was the only one that compared to the i7.

Now I understand that Intel processors are generally far more powerful than AMD chips. However, they are also incredibly expensive. If I had $2,000.00 to spend, than the i7 would have been a no-brainer. However, I don't have that kind of money so I had to choose components wisely. At least the computer cost less than $1,000.00 though. So why AMD? I've always liked AMD chips. In addition, this particular processor has eight integer cores, very handy for the programs that I run since many of them use multiple cores.

Now before someone says "no it is only four cores," I would like to point out that it has four modules with two physical cores in each module. I have looked at the architecture and there are clearly eight cores. Still don't believe me? Then take a look at the actual die here. Still don't think it's eight integer cores? Well, that's your problem, not mine. In addition, the architecture between the two companies' chips are too different to make any reasonable comparison anyway. One uses hyper threading and the other splits everything into modules. There's no comparison to made here. Why people have to argue over which is better I have no idea. You get the chip that will work best for you. Period. The AMD FX-8320 I have determined after doing my research is the chip that will do what I need it to do, hence why I chose it.

Now the individual power of the cores in Intel chips are generally much stronger, hence they are good for for high end gaming. However, I don't need a computer for high end gaming; I need one for 3D art production where I usually have several programs open at once and am setting up renders that use multiple cores. Hence where the usefulness of having eight cores comes in. In addition, I am using a Radeon graphics card and those run better on AMD chipsets. I did not choose NVidia because their reliance on Cuda will become obsolete soon while AMD is embracing a new technology standard that more and more games will be relying on. I can't remember the name of the tech at the moment but I will let you all know when I remember.

I would have loved to get the i7 4790k. However, my budget did not allow that. However, the FX-8320 will still do what I need it to do so I have no worries about it. Once I have this new desktop, I should be able to render large high quality scenes in only a fraction of the time it takes on my laptop. Let me put it this way: my laptop uses a quad core A8 with a clock speed of 1.9 Ghz. The FX-8320 has eight cores with a clock speed of 3.5 Ghz. Big difference. In addition, my laptop only has 512 MB of available VRAM. My new desktop will have 2 GB of VRAM. That will help tremendously, especially if I need to render out PhysX physics or high end particles systems.

I can't wait to try it out. Once I get the system, I will immediately switch production of Aphrael from my laptop to the new desktop. This will be for the sole reason of rendering the final model in Unreal Engine 4. It will be fun and glorious so stay tuned!