What do all these benchmarks mean?
To put things into simple perspective.
The AMD 2011 system has much power on tap and the flexibility to apply this power to give good performance in various types of applications but lacks raw speed. From what we have seen of AMD's product design and marketing approach with their 'Fusion' brand this seems to have been the idea all along.
The AMD system needs faster CPU and Graphics clock speed to give it the edge over Intel outright.
The INTEL 2011 system is faster, significantly faster in some specific applications but lacks overall power. Due to its relatively weak (but much improved over previous Intel Graphics) graphics it does poorly in some applications.
The Intel system needs a much more powerful graphics solution plus the ability for the CPU and GPU to work together in a seamless fashion for it to have the edge over AMD outright.
Both systems are the same price, If we add graphics to the Intel platform that is faster that what it already can do this adds another $75-$100 on top of the purchase price. The AMD system already has a GPU so no additional purchase is necessary, However the AMD A8 has a price premium over the Intel i3 but only enough for a small graphics card. Given the improvement Intel 2011 graphics has other previous generations the purchase of a $20-$40 graphics card from NVIDIA or AMD will not give much benefit unless the user has specific applications or games which require either brand of GPU to be used.
We can see the significance and boost good graphics gives a PC by comparing the benchmark scores achieved by the AMD and INTEL systems against those achieved by the INTEL Core2Duo system with NVIDIA GTX460 graphics.
Benchmark Summary
| Category | Application/Test | Test Winner | Category Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software Installation | Acrobat Installation iTunes Installation Live essentials Installation |
Intel Intel AMD |
Intel |
| Math/CPU Performance | HyperPI wPrime |
Intel AMD |
Tie |
| File Archiving | 7-Zip WinRAR |
AMD Intel |
Tie |
| Overall System Performance | WEI Pcmark Vantage Pcmark 7 Performancetest 7 Sandra 11 Power Consumption |
AMD Intel Intel Intel Intel Tie* |
Intel |
| Disk Performance | SATA 3 Performance USB 3 Performance USB 2 Performance |
AMD AMD Intel |
AMD |
| Multimedia | iTunes WMP12 Movie Maker MediaEspresso Handbrake x264 |
Intel AMD Intel Intel AMD AMD |
Tie |
| 3D Games | Furmark 3Dmark 01 3Dmark 03 3Dmark 05 3Dmark 06 3Dmark vantage 3Dmark 11 Dirt2 Dirt3 Trackmania HAWX2 LostPlanet2 Resident Evil 5 GTAIV Just Cause 2 Deus Ex:Human Revolution Duke Nukem Forever StreetFighter4 World In Conflict |
AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD |
AMD |
| Web Browsing/Internet | Peacekeeper IE Testdrive webVIzBench |
Intel AMD Intel |
Intel |
| Professional Graphics/Digital Content Creation | Specviewperf11 Cinebench10 CPU Cinebench10 OpenGL Cinebench11 CPU CInebench11 OpenGL Photoshop CS5 |
AMD Intel AMD AMD AMD Intel |
AMD |
* Systems with different capabilities will exhibit different ratios of performance per watt. Intel may use less power in some tests but it also exhibts less performance per watt and AMD greater performance per what
