Mar 04, 2017 12:54 PM EST By Josh McClaren, UniversityHerald Reporter

The debate on Intel vs. AMD has never been raised in the past for the answer is quite clear that Intel's superiority has been unchallenged for a decade until Ryzen came along. Ryzen promised a dramatic performance-to-pricing ratio, which may be true in some benchmark results, but clearly misguided for Intel can offer something cheaper and faster too.

AMD Ryzen 7 processors have officially launched, which also brings to light the nagging question for months on end as to which is a better CPU. Intel vs. AMD debate has been drummed up with extensive reviews, all sorts of benchmarking tests, complicated overclocking experiments and lots of expert theorizing. AMD Ryzen has been boasting of dramatic improvement in performance at less than half the price of its Intel counterparts. However, this claim is not entirely accurate for Intel has a better alternative as well.

The Intel vs. AMD debate on performance and value puts AMD in a favorable light, but this is not entirely an accurate claim. This may stem from the direct comparison between the pricey 8-core Intel Core i7-6900K, which is equivalent in speed to the 8-core Ryzen 7 1800X but the AMD chip is less than half its price. However, there is a cheaper alternative, the 4-core Intel Core i7-7700K which is equally capable of handling the day-to-day workload handled by the Ryzen 7 1800X.

PC World makes a clear comparison of the two processors starting with the $500 Intel CPU paired with a decent $200 Z270 motherboard for a total price of $700. Meanwhile, the $500 Ryzen 7 1800X paired with a $300 AM4 AX370 motherboard will fetch a total of $800. Both processors perform comparatively well in general gaming systems.

The only difference is when games make use of more than 4 cores like in "Battlefield 1" and "Civ" where the Intel vs. AMD argument favors the red team. The opposite can be seen in the Star Swarm Stress Test, a real-time tech demo created by Oxide Games, the developer of the "Ashes of Singularity" where the Intel Core i7-7700K had an identical score with the Ryzen 7 1800X. In Cinebench R15, the Ryzen CPU excels as the test include rendering 3D scenes where all cores and threads are fully maximized. However, the Intel Core i7-7700K's robust individual cores outperform the AMD CPU in tests like the GeekBench 3.0 Single Core 64-bit, which is a synthetic benchmark scoring the CPU power, GameSpot reported.

In short, the prevailing debate on Intel vs. AMD processors is not just based on value, performance or even overclocking. It all boils down to usage where Intel is still the safest bet for workstation work, general gaming, and daily tasks. AMD may be cheaper and less time-consuming for workloads involving 3D rendering or video encoding, gaming performance requiring multiple cores boost, enthusiast level of overclocking or streaming games online minus a separate computer.

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