What has happened to Intel lately?

[DarkeoX]

(10-28-2013, 08:27 AM)drhycodan Wrote: So about what Intel CPU does the fastest AMD cpu compare to? And aren't the newer Core i5/i7's all APU's besides the X79 Core i7's since they all come with integrated HD4000/4600 graphics?

Yes they are, all Intel Chips that comes with an integrated graphic solution are technically APU. The thing is that the integrated graphics in Intel chips are barely on par with AMD's one, the latter having "a bit" more experience regarding graphics... And as said above, the implementation of that concept at Intel isn't really on par yet with AMD. Which is why even if the Intel CPU itself washes away most of what AMD can offer CPU and APU wise, the graphic part of APUs AMD are far superior IMO. And from that balance comes the fact that if you're basically not planning to buy a dedicated GPU anytime soon, which is the segment of the market AMD is aiming at with their APUs, you'd better buy an AMD APU which are usually 150-190$ less expensive than the Intel counter part for roughly the same in-game performance.
Of course, it depends on the money you have at the moment. But one can also consider that if you can indeed just buy any GPU you want with your Intel solution ending up with a better CPU and possibly graphic solution than what any APU can deliver, you can just as well crossfire you integrated AMD APU graphics with whatever AMD GPU (won't give you a huge boost, but anyway, the GPUs that are supported aren't beasts nor they are expensive. Something around 6530 and stuff) it supports.
So of course, performance wise, and if you plan to have your build to evolve in something powerful for gaming. Just go Intel and add some dedicated GPU when you can.
However, I still believe Intel APU by themselves still have some ground to cover before they can become as attractive as AMD APUs are performance/$ wise.

If I remember correctly, a 3770k + HD 4000 was performing in-game a (tiny) bit worse than the A8-3850 (2.5-6 Ghz + 6550), so depending on games they might be on-par (of course, this is casual gamer stuff : we don't want HBAO, MSAA x8, V-Sync or TressFX, and we play preferably at 720p). That was like over a year ago, and you can already see that we're not really in the same price category, yet the delivered performance for the application that interest us is roughly the same. Well if you consider the power of the CPU itself, of course it would cost more. But the thing here is as a self-contained casual gaming solution, the AMD APU wins by far, and since then we've got the A10. I don't know how things went for Haswell, and I hear Intel are planning for HD 5000 and stuff but right now, if I wanted a ~300$ rig that do usual stuff + being able to play some new games at low-medium and knew that I wouldn't be touching it for the next 2-3 years, I'd go AMD without a doubt.