Which Processor Should I Choose - AMD Or Intel?

Oct 27, 2016

I’m Viru Patel, Sales Manager at Tiny Green PC and I’ve spent over 10 years helping integrators specify and configure that right PC platform to run their application. It is confusing, and there are a lot of different potential parameters to look at – if you’re not careful you can either spend more than you need to, or choose a PC that doesn’t actually quite do the job.

I’m actually a chemist by training, which was my degree subject and I spent 13 years working in Gas and Liquid Chromatography. I’ve been interested in PC’s since IBM brought out their first desktops and became interested in building my own when suppliers started selling cases for PC’s.

I joined Anders to look after the meters business. Given my background interest I was delighted to be given the chance to launch Tiny Green PC and to help pioneer the innovative small low power fanless PC’s. Since 2008 we have introduced a range of PC’s with Intel, AMD and ARM processors and we are still working on enhancing our range of PC’s.

Over the next three months I’m planning regular posts going through all of the questions you should be asking when specifying a PC. We’re going to start by going to the core of the matter – and looking at the processor.

Viru

Which processor should I choose - AMD or Intel?

The most obvious difference is price. For a given level of performance, an AMD machine is usually much cheaper than the equivalent Intel unit. For example, the Intel-based Intense PC2 i5 and i7 with 2.2GHz and 2.6GHZ processors respectively cost from £550 / £670, whilst the Fitlet-T with a 2.4GHz AMD GX-424CC SoC starts at just £345 for a spec that’s very comparable.

For the most demanding applications, it is true to say that Intel machines offer the highest level of processing power, whilst AMD scores on multimedia performance. Our most powerful Intel machine, the new Airtop, clocks at 3.8GHz, outperforming our fastest AMD offering, the 2.4GHz Fitlet-T discussed above.

On graphics performance the opposite will be the case. The AMD Radeon R5E provided in the Fitlet-T discussed above is more capable than the Intel HD 5500 Graphics chips in the Intense PC2. If you play back HD video on the two machines you will see a difference. Of course, this doesn’t matter in every application – you pay your money and you make your choice.

For most applications, an AMD based or an Intel based machine will do the job equally well. As I said at the start, customers often call us with their minds already made up. That’s why we offer a choice.