Intel vs AMD

If battery life is your primary concern try Acer.

 

From what I have seen published the Acer has a higher rate of problems than ASUS.
http://www.pcmag.com/image_popup/0,1871,iid=242801,00.asp

Regards,
Jerry

 

These last few posts have talked about quality, reliability and support and I don't think any of those are valid arguments when choosing between an Intel or AMD based computer. Both makers produce very high quality, reliable processors.

A processor either works, or does not work, so leaving driver updates to the notebook maker, or the motherboard/PC maker in the case of PCs, is appropriate. It is the chipset drivers that get updated, not CPU drivers.

Yes, Intel makes motherboards and they do support Intel CPUs very well. But Gigabyte, ASUS, MSI, DFI, Foxconn, Biostar and many more makers make excellent motherboards that do an excellent job of supporting AMD processors as well. And truth be told, I prefer Gigabyte and ASUS boards over Intel - but that's my personal opinion and I have to add that Intel boards are just as "reliable", a solid indication of equal "quality". The fact AMD does not make motherboards is no indication of lessor quality.

Battery life is NOT determined by the CPU alone. Screen size and brightness are HUGE factors, as is choice of GPU, amount of RAM, wireless vs Ethernet, drive speed, USB devices - things determined by the notebook maker and not the CPU.

CPU failure is rarely the cause of notebook failure.

Heat is a problem for ALL notebooks. Some AMDs run cooler than some Intels and some Intels run cooler than some AMDs so to use a blanket statement (no pun intended) about heat in AMDs or Intels (the entire lines) is an invalid argument - especially, and I say again, especially when it is the responsibility of the case to keep the internals cool. And note I said "internals" and not "CPU".

Discussing overclocking capabilities is an invalid argument. (1) You don't overclock notebooks. (2) Damage from overclocking is not covered under any warranty - not by the CPU maker, not by the motherboard maker and not by the computer maker. And (3) overclocking capabilities have absolutely zero value on, or indication of quality or reliability. Overclocking is a marketing scheme, not a CPU design scheme. Engineers do not design in overclocking - they design to specs (or state-of-the-art limits) and marketers then dummy down the specs to create overclocking headroom (but that's for another discussion, since, back to (1), you don't overclock notebooks and this topic is about notebooks).

As noted, this thread is about notebooks so with that in mind, in order to choose the best notebook for YOU, you have to (1) set a budget, (2) determine your needs and the primary use of the notebook, then (3) research, research, research the specific offerings in that price range.

 

Asus is a great choice, they actually make many of the laptops for other brands which rebrand them and sell as their own (that's called an ODM). Apple, Sony, IBM Thinkpads (prior to Lenovo change), HP etc etc.

Not to throw too much gas on the fire...I've had nothing against AMD in the past, I've built quite a few home rigs and gaming rigs using them. But laptop wise, experience in the field (my job is an SMB computer/network consultant..so I see just about every brand/situation/setup/usage type there is..across any/all type of computer/network/it equipment/category there is....and in huge numbers.)....I've not see AMD based laptops fair as well. Not so much due to the processor...but step back and put your thinking/logic cap on for a moment. AMDs are usually geared towards "budget"..hence the rest of the laptop will be budget...hence lower grade components. 1 year warranty hard drives more frequent than 3 year warranty hard drives, slower rpm hard drives, more oddball video/gpu, etc. When these cheaper AMD laptops come into our service department for some TLC/repair...we tend to moan out loud "oh crap...junker laptop, this job is going to be a pain in the arse)

With laptop, IMO it is wise...as it is with any computer, to lean more towards business grade models with 3 year warranties. Superior components "under the hood". Sure they're a little more expensive, but in the long run...your ROI over 3- 5 years will tend to be better.

Things that REALLY count to help your runtime on laptops:
*Install more RAM, which means less hard drive use due to swapfile. Hard drives use more juice than RAM.
*Dim your screen a bit
*Turn off that bluetooth if you're not using it
*Turn off the wireless if you're not using it
*Use your head and shop wisely...upgrade the battery upon purchase with a larger capacity one. The cheaper base models will logically come with the lower end short run battery because it's cheaper!
*The more common cause of failure of laptops that I run across is hard drive failure...but I don't believe it's due to heat as much as that's hyped up to be, laptops are designed to deal with heat. It's due to the lumps and bumps that laptops take. Even with automatic shock dampers, the drives in laptops can take a beating, and they don't like that. My laptops always run 24x7 in my laptop bag, I open/shut them several times a day as I go to clients, that thing gets hot, and it runs fine. It's designed to take it. Occasional drops, literally throwing my laptop bag somewhere in a hurry...those are the things that shorten the life of laptops. What's an economical way to lengthen the life of your laptop, and recapture some of its lost performance? Replace it's hard drive! That's the part that's causing the worst slow down, it's old and tired and beatup! Hard drives are dirt cheap, I just got a sale notification from Newegg..a Western Digital Scorpio Black SATA 2.5" laptop drive for $49!!! Yeah..that's a good model with a 5 year warranty, 7,200rpm and 16 megs of cache. Every couple of years pickup a new drive for mere pocket change and clone it over. Now your laptop will run great for another few years. Phew...that was hard huh?

 

I do really appreciate the comments. There is a great of knowledge on this forum.

I grew up not with the saying that "If you have to ask you can't afford it," but instead "A fool and his money are soon parted."

In truth, money is no object, but I do not do things that require a lot of power and capabilities. I mostly just surf and use card and Bible programs to prepare.
So I think, from what I have seen, that something with an i3 processor, W7 64 bit, 4 gb of memory, and the general construction of such a laptop will fit my needs. The few times I travel has show that my present 14 inch screen and a DVD burner suit me fine. i do not use the laptop very much, and most of the start-ups are to update the software, etc.

I do want to have the best chance of lack of failure, and long battery life. From evaluations by users I think that ASUS probably is what I want. I have had good luck with my Toshiba, but as stated, the battery life is poor. My children both have Sony laptops, and they seem OK.
Thanks again, and I will appreciate any comments or help. Until I do buy, nothing is set in concrete.

Regards,
Jerry

 

Now this seriously baffles me, if money is not an issue and you are looking for great reliability, then why not go for something in ThinkPad, EliteBook, ProBook or Latitude lines? I would personally love nothing more than to get my hands on a good ThinkPad (W or T series).

 

If money played no roll, but the wisdom of not parting from your money foolishly also abounds, I would personally look at some of the laptops that have titanium type cases, can withstand small liquid spills and short drops. Those type of laptops will stand up to whatever you likely will encounter anywhere. That is money well spent if you have the money to spend.

I know a guy who just the other day spill his coffee on his laptop. It shut down almost instantly, and is now dead. Quite an expensive cup of coffee

Sul.

 

I never saw any reason to throw my money around. I am not looking to buy the highest quality and absolute best money can buy, but to get a good solid laptop that takes care of my needs. Those needs do not require the fastest or most powerful machine.

Just surfing and using the programs I have on my system could be taken care of with a very inexpensive machine, but I do want a little extra capability in case I find something that I want to do that I do not want to anticipate now. I suspect I can find what I want under $800 this fall. As I stated the laptop mostly just sits there to be updated until I travel; which is getting less and less.

Regards,
Jerry

 

I am the same. But I would splurge on a laptop that cost $300 more, for the same computing power, if it would be more "rugged". I feel there is as much chance of damaging a laptop from outside sources as there is from heat eventually killing it.

Sul.

 

i heard that intel bundled and overpriced their hardware when putting it put there product in systems for dell and others is this true? and a IT rule was passed that dell and others have to use other makers as well now because they were ruling them out and customers were getting overcharged for intel bundle's?

 

No! Now think about that for a second. How could Dell survive if they had to pay extra for over priced components? They would either have to absorb the costs [which in this business] they can't afford, or pass the costs on to consumers who will say forget it, and move on to another maker.

An IT rule? No that's not what was happening either. But, you're closer on this one. What was happening was Intel (and Microsoft, Norton, and others) would force makers (not just Dell) to exclude competing products from their lines, or they would raise their wholesale costs. So if Dell wanted to keep buying Intel CPUs at great wholesale prices, Dell could not offer machines with AMD processors. And if Gateway wanted to buy Windows at great wholesale prices, they had to offer only MS Word and not WordPerfect, for example. There were no laws passed that said Dell had to offer AMD. But there were laws passed that said Intel and Microsoft could not use monopolistic sales tactics designed to force the competition out of business.

But understand - this is ancient history, over a decade ago and does not apply to today's market.

 

i see i had a feeling i was off there. I never new it was over a decade ago because i saw on tv a couple a months ago saying something like that

 

In terms of raw power,Intel has the upper hand now, a few years ago it was AMD the winner - and both have a reasonably wide choice of solutions oriented to power saving or intensive computing.
It is important that at least those two heavyweights stands on the CPU market to boast the market with competition!

Intel has an important advantage being one of the biggest semiconductor producers so it is playing in a wider marker than AMD, that is more focused on CPU/GPU; on the other hand AMD shown that it is well capable to constantly deploy product with better price/performance ratio, even now that Intel has a better chip design.

For heavy loaded servers or workstation it still makes sense to perform benchmarks on most important applications and services to tailor the best configuration possible for the need: sometimes AMD will perform better, sometimes will be Intel the winner, it depends on the code.
However, for the average user nowadays differences are minimal (in primis because processors have far more than enough horse power than usually needed), both on desktop or laptop solutions it is more a matter of taste or "religion".

You will currently see far more differences switching to a SSD drive (if disk access performances are important for you), or obviously switching to a discrete graphic card if you need that kind of performance.

 

It is not that much wider. They both pretty much share the same the markets. Intel's real advantage is that they have very, very deep pockets so they have the resources (read: cold, hard cash - and lots of it) to invest much greater amounts of time, money and expertise on R&D. Because of this, unless top management is caught in some Enron type scandal, it is not likely AMD will ever be able to pass, or even catch up with Intel's momentum again. As I said almost a month ago in the beginning of this thread, Intel while sitting on their laurels, was spanked hard by AMD (originally created by IBM to make Intel CPUs) and it embarrassed and shamed them greatly. Further embarrassing (fueled by the exploding gaming and self-builders industries) is that it took nearly 10 years for Intel to catch up then leap frog past AMD to regain the lead. Intel just can't afford to let that happen again. For this reason, even the giant Intel regularly lowers prices to keep the pressures on AMD, while the tiny AMD keeps nipping at Intel's heels.

Both companies need each other to keep the pressures on - that's good for them, and great for consumers.

 

He made a great decision on a reliable brand, Asus! Asus has been doing very well with regards to reliability, in many...many...many recent laptop reliability surveys.

I work with just about all the brands out there as part of my job, going back to the 486 and early Pentium 1 days. Thinkpads (back in the IBM days) have always been towards the top of my list, lets not forget Asus made quite a few of them, I've had 6 or 7 Thinkpads myself since the T20 days, and I'm currently typing from my T60P. But after seeing, using, and working on, quite a few Asus laptops, an Asus will be the replacement for this T60P that I've used for the past few years.

And as many stated would happen, when IBM branched off the laptops via the Lenovo name....they aren't what they used to be anymore...support isn't as good, quality doesn't seem as good either.

 

1. I am partial to ThinkPad, as it is one of the very very few remaining machines where I can get latest processor with a 16:10 screen.
2. I find the current 16:9 screens completely ununsable. Also, I have a thing for excellent keyboards. And it doesn't get better than ThinkPad.
3. People pay very little attention to the driver support of a company. Drivers can make or break the performance of a Windows machine. Lenovo is exemplary in updating drivers to ThinkPad line and delivering them seamlessly via their update utility.

 

Their keypads are still pretty good, years ago they were way up top, now they're still one of the better ones, but they've lost their big lead, others have caught up, and a few years after the big Lenovo change, they changed keyboard suppliers and the new ones ain't what they used to be.

Same with their screens, they had excellent screens year ago, specifically a model called the "flexview". But that is no longer...that died after the T60 (another good IBM feature that disappeared shortly after the Lenovo forking).

Screen rez/ratio is a preference.

I find Dells driver support to be at least equal, I like to manually control what drivers I want in there, I can't stand the update utilities which try to fluff up your system with too much other bloat and nag you all the time. Asus sites aren't as easy, but they're still adequate. Lenovo started bloating up their new systems too much, back in the IBM days they came quite lean, now I wipe them, install Windows, drivers, and then deliver to clients. Too much other "junk" on there now.