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Over the weekend, in AMD's back yard over in Dallas Texas, an impromptu survey yielded some rather interesting responses. Given a choice of options, without knowing which was which, gamers seem to be choosing AMD. KitGuru mutters “Shirley some mistake” and does some digging.
One of the things KitGuru likes most about benchmarks, is that they are scientific and accurate and repeatable. Unfortunately, these scores may not always ‘realworld'. Other, less tangible factors can affect the world.
The classic line is, “Not sure really, it just feels better”.
Determined to know what people felt about the latest AMD products – intrepid explorer, Gerard Butler body double and all round cunning linguist, Terry Makedon decided to spend 15 hour days setting up a series of suspiciously similar looking rigs. Each of which contained either an AMD or an Intel set-up, at the same price point. What followed was a series of 140 enthusiasts, enthusiastically fragging their arses off to see which of the identical systems they preferred.
So, what was the result of this modern day take on the Pepsi Challenge?
Challenge One
With an i3 Sandybridge system ticking away in box one and a Fusion A8-3850 in the other, 2 people said that they could not tell the difference, while 5 voted for Intel and a staggering 136 went for AMD.
Challenge Two
This time the graphics horsepower was the same, each rig had the latest Radeon HD 7970 card. The Intel rig was running a 2700k at stock speed, while the identical looking AMD unit was powered by an FX-8150 Bulldozer. The result was closer this time, with 28 ‘Sorry, cannot tell the difference' votes', 40 Sandybridge lovers and a highly respectable 73 AMD-istas. Let's just be clear, if the 2700k was clocked to the max, this would not be close – but may chips will go through their lives unclocked.
Having recruited heavily into its technical marketing teams recently, will Intel prepare the Coca-Cola Challenge and run the same tests with ‘overclocking set to max' ?
Comment below or in the KitGuru forums.
Well, there is quite a simple explanation to it.
In the first case, they used the integrated graphics, and guess what? The one inside the A8-3850 is more powerful than tthe intel HD 3000. It’s like asking 2 people: tell me something obvious, is the game playing better on the A8? Sure it does, but you are doing an unfair comparisson. If the i3 and A8 would have used the same dedicated videocard, geee, who would have won?
In the second case, I do believe they used a different SSD on the two configurations. They had to do something to make the AMD system feel smoother so they can get a win in both tests. At stock frequencies the Bulldozer bottlenecks even the GTX 580, so if you were in AMD’s shoes, you would try to avoid that conclusion.
I agree, its a nice PR stunt, but come on who on earth buys an AMD CPU for gaming? its a nice extra in a low powered laptop or something similar, but for high end gaming?