Features - QOTW: Do you favour efficiency or performance in your CPU?

[anselhelm]

AMD has completely conceded the high-end of the market to Intel and as such has allowed Intel to continue to price its products far higher than it would have otherwise.

While I generally agree with you (though I think the main reason Intel wins is its production capability), I just wanted to correct you on this point. Lack of competition slows down innovation, it doesn't raise prices. Quite the opposite is true. It was AMD's competition years ago that raised prices in the first place, going from ~$300 to ~$1000 by introducing enthusiast processors. We're now back to where most people's notion of a high end CPU is a ~$300 CPU (although higher end does exit). If AMD ever went back to being competitive, it's possible we'll see another battle with rising prices. However, it will be coupled with a large performance increase, which will make it worthwhile for enthusiasts.

I respect your point but I disagree with your conclusions.

Both AMD and Intel have had ridiculously expensive halo products for many years now. That was not caused by competition but rather by the desire of companies to 1-up each other at the very high-end for the richest of the rich.

For most consumers, lack of competition not only slows down innovation but ALSO raises prices for the items they want. It's basic economics, nothing more. In an isolated system, a company will charge as much as it can unless it's got good reasons not to.

If AMD were properly competitive with Intel on the high-end, Core i7 processors would be cheaper as Intel and AMD would be more engaged in a price war. Both of their halo products would be insanely-priced still, but that's not the realm of >99% of their consumers.

[ET3D]

For most consumers, lack of competition not only slows down innovation but ALSO raises prices for the items they want. It's basic economics, nothing more. In an isolated system, a company will charge as much as it can unless it's got good reasons not to.

It's not really basic economics. Basics economics talk about a lot of similar companies with insignificant market share, not about two competitive companies.

Intel and AMD had "ridiculously expensive halo products", but this only started once AMD managed to produce a CPU that was faster than Intel's. AMD's competition didn't drive prices down, it just drove the high end up, from $300+ to $500-700 for a high end (not "extreme") CPU. Here's a quote from a PC Magazine article from the Core 2 release:

" Moreover, Intel's Core 2 Duo prices are, for now, undercutting their competition. Intel's 2.67-GHz E6700 chip will be priced at $530, while the 2.6-GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ is currently priced at $696, a 31 percent premium. Intel's Core 2 Extreme chip sits at the high end; the 2.93-GHz X6800 is priced at $999.

Intel's 2.4-GHz E6600 will ship for about $316, while the 2.13-GHz E6400 and 1.86-GHz E6300 will be priced at $224 and $183, respectively. Meanwhile, AMD's 2.4-GHz Athlon 64 X2 4800+ is priced at $645, while the 2.2-GHz 4200+ and 2.0-GHz 3800+ are priced at $365 and $303, respectively."

Once AMD stopped being competitive, prices for high end consumer CPU's went back down to $300+.

[Lemonade Ninja]

Not really a toughie for me, would rather have the performance!

[pastymuncher]

A bit of both. If gaming then performance over efficiency any day but if just browsing the net etc it needs to have efficiency. Personally i can't see the point of these AMD APU's. They have too much power for the likes of a general purpose internet pc or HTPC yet don't have enough performance for a out and out gaming machine. I would never buy one and i also think the new ones are overpriced.

[jonah]

efficiency for sure. I already have nore than enough speed.

[Bagnaj97]

For my main PC, performance/£ is more important; efficiency isn't really an issue unless it's truly horrendous. For HTPCs efficiency is far more important, but I'd still put performance/£ first. So in my main pc I'd run an A8-7600 at 65w, in an HTPC it would be 45w.

[crossy]

Why can't I have both under the same hood.

A APU/CPU/GPU which has very low wattage demand when in idle, but when the power is required, throw low wattage out the window and provide me the power (and heat) one requires.

+1 on this. Although I guess what I want is some kind of clever hexa- or octa-core chip that can both power down cores (i.e. damn near 0W) when not needed and/or down clock those remaining cores as needed. I know IBM's being doing that "power down cores" trick on their PowerPC servers for a while, (the last thing I read said about "downed" core taking milliwatts), so it's do-able.

Failing that, a software switch to allow the user to reconfigure their PC from "tree hugger" to "Jeremy Clarkson" modes as desired. My old ASUS board could also allow downclocks of the processor from the desktop, so again, it's do-able.

Not convinced by AMD's focus on IGP/APU anyway - much prefer to have discrete "CPU" and "GPU" parts even though that does make me a bit of a dinosaur. Thumbs up though that chip designers seem to be focussing on getting the same amount of code run (internal efficiency?) for less power.

[3dcandy]

A balance, to be honest.

Up to a point, I require power. After that, efficiency .... though I take that to imply a cost-effective purchase, lower running costs, cooler, less noise, etc.

The question is .... where's the tipping point in the balance?

That, in my view, entirely depends on what you do with the machine. If you write letters and the occasional report, browse the web a bit, do your email, run your accounts and not much more demanding that that, then frankly, any processor in about the last 15 years, maybe more, is enough.

If you're a fanatical gamer, you'll probsbly want processing grunt, but mostly, on graphics cards.

I'm in-between, but close to the first than the fanatical gamer. As long as it'll do the above type general tasks, and do a decent job of photo editing and sound editing, then it's got enough power for me, So a CPU of the Q6600 era, and performance, is enough for me. Beyond that, it's overkill, and is merely power for power's sake.

So, if buying today, I'd take a little care to ensure I matched that, but I susoect it'd be quite hard to get under that. So, mainly, I'd look at what the next step up would cost, and of nominal enough I'd do it, but if I felt the increase in price was more than nomibal, I'd stick at that point.

The same logic applies to how much storage I need, how much memory, what geaphics card, and so on. Oh, and whether to add an SSD would be decided the same way, but view being that, for me, it's nice, but not by any means necessary. I don't expect to get many agree with me, especially on that latter point. But it's how I see it.

So .... a balance, but I'd need convincing that power over efficiency was justified.

I wouldn't want to go back to a non SSD machine though now after having them for the past few years. Efficient in that I can actually get more done as the whole machine gets a boost...
Each to their own though I guess