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I'm getting myself a PC custom built, and I'm wondering whether to go for AMD or Intel for the motherboard, graphics card etc.

On the one hand Intel is capable of much greater speed and processing power. On the other hand AMD is much more user friendly, allows for easy upgrades, is better for games etc...

What do you think?

As I said earlier, intel is the way to go now.
AMD used to be the powerhouses though.

Intel coupled with Nvidea is the best, as shown in the poll

It seems as though when they called a ceasefire in the processor wars some years ago, Intel blew away AMD's R&D.
Intel just got so far ahead with multi-core and similar tech, AMD is still struggling to keep up.

And, since AMD owns ATI now (or whetever the arrangement is), nVidia and Intel are the way to go.

This is all dependant on what you want out of your box, but for games written to take advantage of CPU features, having an Intel fitted seems to work best.

The way I built up by current box was to get a motherboard that supported SLI, and buy a single mid-range nVidia card.
When I could afford it, I got the 2nd card, and paired them up. A paired set of cards came out better and cheaper than a top-end card, when I read up about them.
SLI cards seems to be fairly hard to find though. Crossfire was far easier to find :(
I found that the i5 range of CPUs was good enough for the machine I wanted, so I didn't have to pay the premium for an i7.
Fill it full of RAM (8GB+), and get a 64-bit OS on there.

It's all about Intel now. I have an AMD but that's 'cos I built my PC a few years ago. Intel is sooo far ahead of AMD now it's unreal.

 Squigsquasher wrote:
I'm getting myself a PC custom built, and I'm wondering whether to go for AMD or Intel for the motherboard, graphics card etc.

On the one hand Intel is capable of much greater speed and processing power. On the other hand AMD is much more user friendly, allows for easy upgrades, is better for games etc...

Tell me more about how much more "user friendly" one silicon ship with pins on it is versus another silicon chip with pins on it, for I wish to know.

Ive always gone with Intel and ive never had any issues.

Oh gak it's 2004 again!

It doesn't matter dude. They're all the same, just google benchmarks in your pricerange and shebang.

I went AMD for the price. I got the 8core CPU for less than $200. Teamed it up with a top Radeon card for another $200. Runs awesome. 60 FPS on ultrahigh settings. Look at the specs and then find the deals unless you don't mind spending the money.

 Ouze wrote:

 Squigsquasher wrote:
I'm getting myself a PC custom built, and I'm wondering whether to go for AMD or Intel for the motherboard, graphics card etc.

On the one hand Intel is capable of much greater speed and processing power. On the other hand AMD is much more user friendly, allows for easy upgrades, is better for games etc...

Tell me more about how much more "user friendly" one silicon ship with pins on it is versus another silicon chip with pins on it, for I wish to know.

From what I heard, AMD motherboards are compatible with almost all AMD graphics cards, so if you want to upgrade your card you just take the old one out and put a new one in, whereas when Intel bring out new graphics cards, they are often incompatible with older motherboards, so you have to buy a whole new motherboard.

Of course this is just what I have heard so don't shoot me.

 InquisitorVaron wrote:
As I said earlier, intel is the way to go now.
AMD used to be the powerhouses though.

This - I used only AMD for many years in multiple PCs (they were always known for getting rather hot, but they had a very attractive price and frequently outperformed the competition), but currently Intel has the top hand.