<rant>
People still buy amd/ati because 1) as buckyj said there cheaper or 2) AMD still builds the best Processors for doing large format multi core applications, IE, rendering, video or image manipulation, audio rendering. Anything super CPU sided that requierd the use of more than 1 core i would rather have a faster quad-core then intels slower quads with a typically smaller cache size. the reason intel chips are better for the end user, ie gamers, is because they are by far, by far better for running less CPU intense things, like games, movies general work, all due to the way that hyper threading works, is the typically slower individual cores work together on a single thing, which in turns makes them faster. most people do not need a quad core and very few people need an 8core cpu, simply because in everyday use theres nothing that needs it, Under any given time if any of you hit ctr-shift-esc and check your cpu loads i dout you go much above 20% doing reguler things and 50% gaming
wich is why a 2.4 ghz with a 6mb cache i7 will by far out preform my 3.4ghz with a 6 mb cache X4 black (thease were the 2 CPUs competeing on the same level and price range at my time of purchase), but because of the faster speed of the amd for the higher end things, and because i built my machine for work, il take the loose in game preformence for the improovment in render times, each of thos cores is about 33% faster than the intell at full load, full load is basicly imposible for windows users but even a conservitive 20% faster guesstement on a visual effects shot that has 80 frames rendering at 10 mins per frame, thats a difference of finishing the render in 200mins on my cpu or 240mins on the intel. that's 40 more mins i can work on the next shot, or go into gaming
all that being said anyone who buys the first iteration of anything computer realated, ie 8 core prossesors or pci 3.0 is kinda dumb, you buy it knowing full well that a better version will be out very very soon. look at quads, a ton of people picked up intels first quads and less than a year later the I5s were out, followed quickly by the I7s. i would not buy any of these chips, there fancy and im sure in 2-4 years im sure they will be awesome. but not yet.
</rant>
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