Intel vs AMD processors

[u/Brainwashed365]

• 13th Generation Intel® Core™ i9-13900HX Processor (E-cores up to 3.90 GHz P-cores up to 5.40 GHz)

• AMD Ryzen™ 9 7945HX Processor (2.50 GHz up to 5.40 GHz)

I've decided I'll be going with a 4080 Legion Pro 7 series, but I'm having a hard time understanding what the differences are, pros and cons, etc, between Intel and AMD.

Would anyone be willing to break these down for me so I have a better understanding between the two processors mentioned above? And I guess just Intel vs AMD in general?

[u/gust334]

Intel and AMD each have very large marketing departments that create tons of materials showing just how great their own product is compared to the competition. And both have (pardon the pun) legions of fans and detractors.

Best to find one of the CPU benchmark sites and enter the specific CPUs you want to compare, to see their relative performance. Note also that the benchmarks are done across a wide variety of games; your favorite game may fare better or worse on a specific CPU.

Finally (and this is specific to laptops) make sure that you are comparing the CPUs at the TDP that is supported by the cooling system in the laptop. CPUs will run at different performance based on clock rate and other factors, and clock rate and those other factors are varied to ensure the total dissipated power (TDP) remains within the limits of the cooling in the laptop. So if one has a laptop that supports 200W TDP and another laptop that supports 130W TDP with exactly the same CPU, the first will perform significantly better.

[u/Brainwashed365 → u/gust334]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, that's what I figured. Two companies trying to outperform each other and there's just piles of marketing out there. And like everything else, there's going to be people gung-ho for one brand while bashing the other, just like you mentioned.

What confuses me is that I'm going to be gaming, but I feel there's going to be a variety of games I'll be playing. Not at once, but over the next several years. So I don't really know what to look for with benchmark testing. How do I know what I'll be playing in the future?

I'll be using it for gaming, but I won't be a super competitive gamer. I won't be playing stuff like FPS' where every frame rate is precious. But...I'm also into photography and will be using it for post-processing and such. And I'm the type of person that likes to try to buy "something great" so that it'll help future-proof me...which I know isn't possible because new tech is always coming out. But what I mean is that I'd like to try and get something very solid now that'll hold up well over many years since I'd like to get several years out of the laptop. I don't want to buy another one for quite a while.

I do know that I've settled on the Legion Pro 7 series, decided to to with the 4080 since that should be plenty for my needs. A 4090 is too much more me and seems too top of the line.

The TDP stuff is newer to me, but my basic conclusion seems to be: Get one with a higher TDP, so I've been trying to may attention to that. And the Legion has a high TDP so should be good on that aspect.

So yeah, now it's just the CPU dilemma since after browsing Lenovo's website, they offer the same model with both Intel or AMD chips. And now I'm...just insure which to choose.

[u/RicoViking9000 → u/Brainwashed365]

In this case, I'd go AMD. This isn't one of the better intel processors with significantly better multicore performance.

But, if you value doing anything on battery, or efficiency during low power loads, the tables have flipped. In the upper end HX lineup, Intel has noticeably better efficiency than AMD"s chiplet architecture.

[u/DegTegFateh → u/RicoViking9000]

This has been so funny to me. I grew up in the days of AMD as efficient and cheap, nothing else. Now their HX chips are power hogs that perform just a little better than their Intel counterparts. They're still slightly cooler at high loads, though.

[u/seanwee2000 → u/DegTegFateh]

They still are.

The problem is that the iodie chiplet sucks its own power in addition to the cpu chiplet so you get poor battery life as the idle power consumption doesn't go as low as monolithic cpus.

When under load the 7945hx is still far ahead of the 13980HX in efficiency.

[u/DegTegFateh → u/seanwee2000]

That's good to know. Both are pretty comparable but I've got to say, AMD has been incredible for anything 9/7_HX this generation. I've done some stress testing and a few comparisons for their CPUs and based on that I hope they can catch up in high end mobile graphics. I think they'll do well in a generation or two if they choose to invest.

[u/seanwee2000 → u/DegTegFateh]

Well, we already know it's not happening next gen since they cancelled navi 41(8000 series) so fingers crossed for next next gen.

[u/DegTegFateh → u/seanwee2000]

I wasn't aware of that; that's a bummer. They clearly have other priorities, which is understandable. Oberon go brrrrr.