It's measurable but is it significant ? True cpu bottleneck is a thing of the past for 99.9% of the games and 99.9% of people. By the time you're cpu limited you're in triple digits fps territory in 1440p. Even 5 years old cpus aren't that far from today's best: https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_7_3700x_ryze...

Is it correct to think that compared by work-done-by-watt AMD is currently better than Intel? (in this example Intel's 10900k uses 250-300W [1], AMD's 3900x uses 140-170W [2]?)

In my case I use often many threads/processes (generated by databases and/or my Python programs that usually spawn as many subprocesses as possible without overloading the CPU) and as my PC/server is next to my desk then if the performance difference is not too great my priority is usually for a CPU that gets less hot/is more efficient (because the fans have to work less therefore the box is less noisy, additionally the room heats up less which makes me suffer less during summer).

[1]: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i9-10900k-cp...

[2]: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ryzen-9-3900x-7-3700x-r...

Thx

If you're after minimal power usage in order to optimize for electricity cost, while still keeping good performance, actually: mobile Intel CPUs tend to be the best pick. AMD has some strong mobile CPU options, but they're essentially impossible to build into a desktop PC, whereas mobile Intel CPUs are available in products like the Ghost Canyon NUCs (ok, well, "available" may not be the right word, because they're freakin' impossible to find right now, but Officially, anyone can buy them).

If you're after lowering heat output for the purposes of reducing noise or increasing overclocking performance, generally its better to solve this via better cooling. Noise is more of a function of bad cooling, rather than super-high heat output from the processor. Many people view liquid cooling as "super high overclocking performance", but actually: The biggest benefit to liquid cooling is that it reduces "air churn" inside the case by removing the typical CPU radiator fan just sitting in the middle of the case spilling air in every direction. Instead, you've got dedicated intake/output fans on defined sides of the case, resulting in clear air paths, which increases fan efficiency, reducing the number of fans you need or reducing the amount of work they need to do.

But: the laws of thermodynamics state that heat can't just disappear. If you're optimizing for actual heat reduction for the sheer purpose of heat reduction, then an Intel mobile CPU or Ryzen desktop CPU is better (with Intel mobile CPUs being better by far).

Check out the Ghost Canyon NUCs. If you can find one, they're more expensive than just DIY, but would likely be a great option for you.

10% more CPU performance is going to provide overall gains that are difficult to measure. That's even more true for games, which nowadays are seldom CPU-bound.

Of course, that "more performance" often means "Running at 300fps instead of 270 fps", and it really doesn't matter. And, the higher the resolution, the more GPU stress you'll see, so at 4K-class resolutions its far closer to trading between CPU-bound and GPU-bound.

But, then, DLSS2 complicates things further by amplifying what the GPU is capable of at even very high resolutions, and the RTX 3080 Ti is releasing in a couple weeks.

So its only possible to speak in generalities about facts which are true in most situations. In the past decade, there has not been any competitively positioned products which would make an Intel/Nvidia PC not the generally-best option for PC gaming. AMD deserves a ton of credit for what they've done with Ryzen, and outside of gaming, BUY RYZEN. But, within gaming, it's a far more complex equation which depends on how much you're spending, what you're using the PC for other than gaming, if you're streaming, etc: In short, its such a complex equation that its better to just not think about it and flip a coin.

The current guidance for "good" gaming CPUs is in the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and Intel i5 10600 range (+/- "X" or "K"). The 3900X and 10900K mentioned above will outperform these two, but it is unlikely to be a significant limiting factor for most gamers. At this level, Intel still beats AMD for gaming performance.

Finally, if you're looking to go for a more budget build, the AMD Ryzen 3 3300X is a very solid entry-level gaming CPU. Based on my observations, most guidance suggests this CPU for lower-cost builds than can support an i5 or Ryzen 5.

If you're looking to make some educated decisions between CPUs, always look for benchmarks. Gamers Nexus [0] does very good CPU reviews, with a mix of gaming and productivity workloads. If you're leaning more production workloads, Phoronix [1] has one of the most comprehensive test suites out there.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/user/GamersNexus

[1]: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=category&item=Process...

AMD is a better value given the price. If Intel wants, they can just cut and match the prices.

Why is there so much callous fanboyism around/against a goddamn CPU supplier like they’re a statement of their lifestyle or such?

Its ok to do due diligence before purchasing but relentless obsession over my red team is better than your blue team screams of immaturity.

Same with the people that endlessly pixel peep and read MTF charts for days in photography. They spend more time talking about how great their camera and lens setup is than actually going out and taking pictures with it.

As a retail business owner, I find 80% of our consumers sound and reasonable. The 20% - we never want their business. We keep our best to not anger them and most of our energy goes into maintaining the public image of our company.

There are some real asshole customers that do things you never want to hear - stuff that makes me lose hope in humanity.

The irritation comes from a mismatch of expectations around the end goal between those who are fanboys and those who just want to get stuff done.

Yes, Intel will often cite performance characteristics without the patches applied, and shame on them for that. And, Yes, it would be interesting to know how much of Intel's performance lead pre-Ryzen was due to this bad speculative execution microcode; it seems likely that AMD wasn't as far behind as everyone thought, but the past is the past.

But the debt is now paid, and Intel still leads in single-core performance. Really, they've never not led in single-core performance (maybe going back to the late-90s Athlon days they were trailing). That's something an Intel shill would tell you, but it's also something anyone can find out just by looking at the benchmarks or doing their own testing. Marketing is mostly lies, but those lies stop when I hold the silicon in my hands.

From what I've heard, Intel likes to run their benchmarks with many (most?) mitigations disabled... but Windows ships with all of them enabled.

Meanwhile, we can compare the security track record of SEV vs SGX to see some real meat. SEV has been cracked completely and repeatedly by simple C or cryptography programming errors like buffer overflows or not checking for points being on the curve. SGX has had no such errors, every single attack on it has been an exotic statistical side channel attack. The last round weren't even practical. Researchers studied it for a year and couldn't actually make it work against real enclaves, but Intel issued CVEs and mitigations for it anyway, just in case. And the root level of SGX was never cracked, which is why it's always been software patchable/renewable without needing new silicon. AMD SEV has needed new silicon more than once.

SGX has held up pretty well given it was born just before the discovery of an entire class of CPU design vulnerabilities.

Can you point at recent information on this?

Most games these days have multi-thread heavy workloads. Gaming hasn't been single-thread dominant for AAA titles for a while.