Comparing AMD And Intel In 2022

Selecting a central processing unit (CPU) for your PC is not difficult. The experts are adamant that the only available options are AMD and Intel. But when you try to choose between the two, that is where the confusion comes in. It emerges that they have been battling it out for decades. We looked more closely at just a few of the criteria and concluded that there is a trade-off between factors and the final decision may well be as simple as where you at in your gaming right now.

Pricing

When it comes to pricing, you need to consider which end of the market you are aiming for, or if you are somewhere in the middle. At the entry level, Intel CPUs were rated as cheaper than AMDs processors in 2022. Conversely, if you want the top-of-the-range CPU, then AMD CPUs costs less in this category than Intel’s products. You can read more here to consider pricing options.

Efficiency

Those in the know tell us that this criterion displays a clear-cut result. AMD wins the lottery for being more efficient. Of course, this just tells Intel where to place the focus on their next-generation CPUs.

If we want to understand what they mean by CPU efficiency, we have to dig a little deeper for answers. We can include factors such as overheating potential, clock speed, and instructions per cycle.

Overheating

The Intel processors will overheat more than AMD’s CPUs if they are utilised with 14 nanometres (nm) Clock Speed Boost. A lower nanometre CPU with smaller transistors needs less power to run. Greater power efficiency translates to less overheating. The AMD CPU has tinier transistors, hence is cooler to operate. A comparison of an Intel 10 nm CPU is not very different from AMD’s TSMC 7nm.

Clock Speed

When clock speed is high, the CPU is generally faster at carrying out its tasks. However, these tasks are not all equal, so this is only one measure. The transistors inside a CPU open and close, and each time they do, this is counted as one cycle. There are billions of these transistors. Clock speed is simply the number of cycles per second. A higher clock speed often means a faster CPU, but not always.

The AMD Clock Speed barely reaches the 5.0 GHz Intel gets to and bypasses. Thus, AMD is more prone to overheat at higher speeds.

Instructions Per Cycle (IPC)

We already mentioned that a CPU performs diverse tasks, some more complex than others. Instructions per cycle (IPC) gives a better idea of this. It indicates how much valuable work is carried out by the CPU for each clock cycle.

Intel’s Rocket Lake IPC is lower than AMD’s Zen 3 IPC.

Comparison Outcome

For a comprehensive review of how Intel and AMD stack up against each other, you can find the details here. In the final tally, Intel is the current 2022 winner. In the ongoing saga of AMD versus Intel, it seems that every time a winner emerges, they are soon overtaken at the next turn.

However, when choosing a CPU for your PC, what matters is getting the one that is right for you now.