AMD v. Intel

Really, it’s unfair to compare an AMD Athlon64 3800+ to an Intel 3.2GHz Pentium 4 Extreme. Then again, AMD has been surprisingly reluctant to send me one of its FX-53 CPUs so I guess you gots to go with what you got. In that case, the 3800+ is about 11 percent slower than the 3.2GHz Extreme for the applications I run –video editing. In real life, that means rendering a 43 minute video with the parameters I use takes about 4 minutes longer on the system with the 3800+. Bad deal? Maybe, maybe not. If you do video rendering for a living, you’re losing time, which means you’re losing money. If you’re doing it just for the heck of it (like I am, to record TV shows and NASCAR races), it means saving about $400 on the initial cost of the CPU.

I’d still like to try the FX-53 but I don’t think (the problem with gut feelings) that’s it will dissolve the gap –and that may be why one has never showed up here. It may cut the gap in half, though, and the FX-53 is still less expensive than either of the current two “Extreme” processors.