Can an X6 be faster than an I7

I've been looking at the Phenom X6 1090T and the Core I7 870, the two CPUs cost about the same amount of money. Whilst there are motherboards for AM3 that are much cheaper than 1156 boards, the difference in gets fairly small when you go for the later AMD / ATI chipsets and want USB3 / SATA3, all in all the two platforms are close in overall cost but what about in terms of performance?

I'm upgrading to get more CPU speed for building software, i.e. multi-threaded compilation mostly under Linux, which one of the two will come out on top for something like a Linux kernel compile? The benchmarks I've seen suggest the I7 will win but I haven't seen a Linux kernel compile benchmark compare there two of them and thats really what I want to see!

Obviously, there is more potential to overclock the I7 than the X6, and the I7 will run cooler too!

I7 then

since you can OC your I7

Many of the 125W Phenom II X6 1055T processors can get to around 3.8GHZ to 4GHZ. The 95W version of the Phenom X6 1055T also seems to be a better overclocker too.

The Phenom II X6 processors also seem to run relatively cool AFAIK.

In multi-threaded benchmarks which can use six cores the Phenom II X6 1055T is very similar in speed to the Core i7 860 under Windows.

Edit!!

This webpage maybe useful:

http://global.phoronix-test-suite.co...01-27320-27846

The Phoronix forums maybe more appropriate for your question too:

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/

The benchmarks I've seen comparing the I7 and X6 generally show them close, sometimes one ahead sometimes the other but the odd benchmark shows the I7 a long way ahead which is why I'm tempted by the Intel chip... that and the hyperthreading which can give a 30% advantage under certain conditions.

The specs show that the X6 1090T is a 125W chip. where as the I7 is a 95W chip. Less watts means less noise and I like a quiet PC. I have overclocked in the past (Celeron 300A, Barton Athlon XP 2500+) but these days I prefer quiet and stability so I don't overclock any PC I use for software development. I like Speedstep, Turbo Boost and Turbo Core or any other technology that speeds up the CPU when it's needed and slows it down when its not, overclocking means losing some of the quiet when the PC isn't working hard!

Perhaps only a minor point depending on what you plan to do in the future regarding upgrades, but it might be worth considering that the AM3 socket is likely to be supported for a greater length of time? Could be useful if you decide you want to keep an up to date CPU whilst having to change as little as possible.

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Originally Posted by Norman121

Perhaps only a minor point depending on what you plan to do in the future regarding upgrades, but it might be worth considering that the AM3 socket is likely to be supported for a greater length of time? Could be useful if you decide you want to keep an up to date CPU whilst having to change as little as possible.

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By that stage I think both current platforms will be redudant, so better to go with the best option now.

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Originally Posted by =assassin=

By that stage I think both current platforms will be redudant, so better to go with the best option now.

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These days I buy my CPUs and motherboards in matched sets, Intel and AMD always seem to be falling over themselves to release a new generation of CPU that won't work in my recently purchased "futureproof" motherboard...

Before I started this thread, I was fairly sure of which way to go but now the waters have been muddied somewhat! Time to read some benchmarks...

Bulldozer got announced, probably be more than a couple of months before I can buy one.

No doubt they'll be faster than what went before and they'll bring Intel's pricing down a tad.

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Originally Posted by KowShak

No doubt they'll be faster than what went before and they'll bring Intel's pricing down a tad.

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..unless Intel's Sandy Bridge is way better than Bulldozer, in which case we'll still have stuck up prices.