Tuesday, January 24th 2012

Marketing and Prejudice Get the Better of Consumers with PC Processors: Test

by
btarunr
 Discuss (80 Comments)
At the AMD & HardOCP Game Experience event held in Texas, gamers were asked to participate in a blind test. The test involved gaming on two sets of gaming PCs with two PCs each, in each set is an AMD-powered PC, and an Intel-powered one. Participants weren't disclosed which PC was driven by what, as they were assembled in identical-looking cases (no window), with identical monitors and other peripherals. The first set is of budget single-monitor HD gaming, while the second set is high-end three-monitor gaming.

After gaming on both rigs in each set, respondents were asked to tick on a sheet of paper, which rig gave them a better gaming experience, or if gaming both had no observable difference. AMD went into this exercise expecting that most respondents will select "no difference" as their option, and so that would bring good PR to AMD, but to their surprise, most respondents selected the rigs that was powered by AMD processors.
In the budget single-monitor gaming machine, the AMD machine (system B) was powered by AMD A8-3850, ASRock A55 chipset motherboard; the Intel machine (system A) was powered by Intel Core i3-2105, and ASRock H61 chipset motherboard. The goal was to configure the PCs to cost under US $500. Both machines were made to use CPU-integrated graphics Ofcourse the respondants were not told which machine was driven by what. The results are as follows:
  • System A (Intel Core i3-2105) better: 5 votes
  • System B (AMD A8-3850) better: 136 votes
  • No difference: 2 votes
With the high-end gaming machines, the Intel machine (system A) was powered by Intel Core i7-2700K, with ASRock P67 Fatal1ty motherboard; the AMD machine (system B) was powered by AMD FX-8150 with ASRock 990FX Fatal1ty motherboard, both machines were given Radeon HD 7970 graphics driving 3-monitor Eyefinity. Again, the respondents didn't know which system was driven by what processor. Results are as follows:
  • System A (Intel Core i7-2700K) better: 40 votes
  • System B (AMD FX-8150) better: 73 votes
  • No difference: 28 votes
The results of this little experiment modeled along the lines of PepsiCo's famous blind-tests of the 1970s shows that marketing and prejudice get the better of consumers, at least in the case of PC processors.
Source: LegitReviews

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80 Comments on Marketing and Prejudice Get the Better of Consumers with PC Processors: Test

#26
Damn_Smooth
3 monitors? At that resolution both setups were GPU limited so there really wasn't a difference.
Posted on Reply
#27
Rowsol
AMD has a much better integrated graphics. It's common knowledge. It's no surprise that without a graphics card the intel is going to suck. And as for the triple monitor test that's lol worthy. The cpu isn't even a factor. With that said the A8 does have some great budget build applications if you are okay with medium settings in games.
Posted on Reply
#28
cavemanthreeonesix
xenocideMy i5-2500k is cheaper and outperforms an FX-8150 in about 90% of gaming benchmarks. I don't feel cheated in the slightest.
odd that seeing when i benched my 2600k against my phenomII 965 it didnt beat it is any test until i started ramping the clocks up, apart from cpu tests like in 3d mark, 26k had a healthy lead in these from the start.

For gaming I found the 26k to begin with quite dissappointing
Posted on Reply
#29
de.das.dude
Pro Indian Modder
i always say and will say it again, AMD systems just feel a lot faster or snappier than those of intel, and thus i will always get AMD ones.

and this tests just prove my point.
Posted on Reply
#30
Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop
de.das.dudei always say and will say it again, AMD systems just feel a lot faster or snappier than those of intel, and thus i will always get AMD ones.

and this tests just prove my point.
And we keep telling you you are so wrong it's silly.
Posted on Reply
#31
entropy13
de.das.dudei always say and will say it again, AMD systems just feel a lot faster or snappier than those of intel, and thus i will always get AMD ones.

and this tests just prove my point.
Exactly, that's why you have 100+ fps in GTA:SA while I only have 60 fps...because I have V-Sync on.
Posted on Reply
#32
Kaynar
Seriously, HOW can they expect and i3 to perform in gaming? They wanted to play pacman with it?
Posted on Reply
#33
Jarman
how hard would it really be to skew the high end test by using a beta driver or something for the 7970 on the 2500k? Or clock down the 2500k, or use low frequency ram etc, etc....or even overclock the bulldozer and use some nice 1800 ram.

The tests seem very open to manipulation if you ask me
Posted on Reply
#34
kajson
The 8150 system also functions as roomheater, thus the gaming experience probs felt a lot cozier :twitch:slap:
Posted on Reply
#35
General Lee
Yeah, nice of AMD to show how you don't need an FX-8150 since the game is totally GPU bound. :D
Posted on Reply
#36
xenocide
cavemanthreeonesixodd that seeing when i benched my 2600k against my phenomII 965 it didnt beat it is any test until i started ramping the clocks up, apart from cpu tests like in 3d mark, 26k had a healthy lead in these from the start.

For gaming I found the 26k to begin with quite dissappointing
Alright, prove it. You did the benches right? So show me what every non-bias tech review site failed to.

www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=288
www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-2500k-and-core-i7-2600k-review/1
www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Gaming-Left-4-Dead-2,2433.html

But I'm sure all these people are lying. I don't want to derail the discussion, so pm me the results, and if they are valid I will no longer hold the idea that the i5-2500k is a better value.
Posted on Reply
#37
Kaynar
xenocideAlright, prove it. You did the benches right? So show me what every non-bias tech review site failed to.

www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=288
www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-2500k-and-core-i7-2600k-review/1
www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Gaming-Left-4-Dead-2,2433.html

But I'm sure all these people are lying. I don't want to derail the discussion, so pm me the results, and if they are valid I will no longer hold the idea that the i5-2500k is a better value.
I will always believe that AMD is better value for money, but Intel and nVidia have the top performance high-end stuff, no matter what u do to try to proove me wrong :D
Posted on Reply
#39
Mistral
MikeMurphyI'd be really interested to know WHY they thought the high-end AMD system was better
It's quite simple, really.

Systems are named A and B, with B being the AMD. People, left to their own devices, will tend to try system A first, B second.

In the case of the "low end" PC, you have a clear gaming advantage on AMD's side.

In the case of the "high end" gaming PC, you have a very comparable gaming experience, but the joy had on system B is fresher in the participants mind, hence why you see more selecting it as the "better" one.
Posted on Reply
#40
Andrei23
de.das.dudei always say and will say it again, AMD systems just feel a lot faster or snappier than those of intel, and thus i will always get AMD ones.

and this tests just prove my point.
See, to me it feels the exact opposite, therefore I must be right about my judgement, following your logic (or lack thereof) here.
Posted on Reply
#41
Andrei23
KaynarI will always believe that AMD is better value for money no matter what u do to try to proove me wrong
GTFO computer tech enthusiast forums then


Bulldozer reminds me of this image



For fanboys these are God's hands (Crapdozer analogy), for people who can think for themselves (people who base their judgements on results i.e. REALITY not marketing fluff and gut feelings) it's something completely different.
Posted on Reply
#42
yogurt_21
Damn_Smooth3 monitors? At that resolution both setups were GPU limited so there really wasn't a difference.
this and the first test the A8 is obviously a better choice for on-chip graphics.

so biased testing sure, but still proves that experience is influenced by marketing and brand loyalty.
Posted on Reply
#43
suraswami
There are 143 total votes for the basic system and only 141 for the high-end system. So there were 2 who had no idea what was happenning and left the tent? Or they got so dizzy with the awesome i3 frame rates and fainted?
Posted on Reply
#44
de.das.dude
Pro Indian Modder
i see a lot of intel fanbois here.
Posted on Reply
#45
coldtortilla
comparing the i3 with the A8 using integrated graphics is kinda unfair. They should both be using some lowend GPU. Then we'll see who has better preformance. :) (core i3 owner)
Posted on Reply
#46
Spectrobozo
I remember some people complaining about HT causing some trouble, stuttering in some games, maybe they tested it with HT on in one of these games?
because it doesn't make any sense, so you will probably need find another factor to explain,
Posted on Reply
#47
badmau5
SpectrobozoI remember some people complaining about HT causing some trouble, stuttering in some games, maybe they tested it with HT on in one of these games?
because it doesn't make any sense, so you will probably need find another factor to explain,
we will never know all details about this test cause its not even test, just another portion of marketing type of crap, the point is AMD vs Intel comparison organized by AMD is kind of hard to trust - unless you are hardcore AMD fanboy which is just silly, like any other fanboyism. It has been proved by numerous reviews already that bulldozer is significantly slower than sandy bridge chips, consumes more power and even somewhat slower than phenom II in many cases and every time someone tries to prove the opposite its just silly noise. AMD isnt bad company - they have amazing GPU's and lots of potential in general but bulldozer is a fail, and every "but our bulldozer feels a lot smoother!" type of statement is a fail as well.
Posted on Reply
#48
de.das.dude
Pro Indian Modder
coldtortillacomparing the i3 with the A8 using integrated graphics is kinda unfair. They should both be using some lowend GPU. Then we'll see who has better preformance. :) (core i3 owner)
the price of each build was the same ainnit?
you dont get the point. AMD offers more for less. thas what they tried to say.
Posted on Reply
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