AMD processor equal to Intel

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I just bought a new HP laptop with an AMD A8 5550M processor with 2.1 ghz. I’ve pretty much always been an Intel user the past decade and was wondering what in Intels line is this new Amd equal to? Would it be like a dual core or I3 or I5? And it also has Win8 which with a stardock download of the old start button I don’t have to deal with the metro start page if I don’t want to. I”ve got it dialed in to go directly to a regular desktop page upon startup and start button. Thank you stardock very much. Thanks in advance for any answers!!

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It should be somewhere in line with the better mobile i3’s or the lower i5’s.

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Also, you will, on rare occasions, find that AMD is not 100% compatible with what you want to do, while Intel is 100% compatible. Intel is the standard that everyone matches. AMD does a tremendous job of matching Intel, but on rare occasions they don’t perfectly match.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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I just bought a new HP laptop with an AMD A8 5550M processor with 2.1 ghz. I’ve pretty much always been an Intel user the past decade and was wondering what in Intels line is this new Amd equal to? Would it be like a dual core or I3 or I5?

mtbarbee,

Hello… My 2 ¢ …. I have two windows 7 64 Pro PC’s …one with a Quad core AMD FX-4100…and the other with an Intel 2 core i7 3517U .. Couldn’t tell you that there was any perceivable difference between either…Then again I’m not secretly working for NASA calculating space shuttle payloads, or playing goofy “kill the space aliens” :cheers: Regards Fred

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AMD and Intel were “neck & neck” at one time, but they (AMD) have slipped somewhat since.
They still make great processors at a really decent price though, they just haven’t been able to compete
On the performance side of things.

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I was no virgin to the computer world, when the AVG cpu’s first appeared, years ago.
I tried them then, and I liked them. They were more efficient than the Intel cpu’s, drew less power and put out a lot less heat. Then if you unplugged the cpu fan, the intel cpu would crash within seconds, while the AMD cpu would just throttle back to a lower speed and keep on running, controlling its heat output by its clock speed.

Then they stopped branding their cpu’s with the clock speed, like Intel did. They branded them instead with how much work they could do, compared to an intel cpu running at the same clock speed.

For ages, in the computer world, all work was done on the ‘rise of clock’ while the cpu’s would do nothing during the ‘fall of clock’. However, in the lowly little Commodore 64, they found a way to actually do work during that ‘fall of clock’ making it a highly efficient little computer.
It was definitely way ahead of its time.
I compared the way the AMD cpu worked, to that little C-64.

I thought that was kinda neat, but it totally freaked out a lot of people, tech’s included.

My AMD 5200+ runs at a nice cool clock speed of ~2000 but performs like an Intel cpu running at 5200 or better. In fact, my PC is now about 8 years old, but runs as well, or better, than a lot of the new PC’s I have to install today. And most of those have multi-core Intel cpu’s in them.
And NO, I don’t overclock my cpu. I don’t have to. Eh?

But for the die-hard Intel users, I know that nothing I say is going to make any difference at all. And, they will Rail against everything I’ve said here.
So this is all nothing but ‘typing practice’ for me, on my new keyboard. rofl

Cheers mates!
The Doctor

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I think you have more under the hood that you state Doc; the 5200 indicates dual core running at 2.6 GHz each if I’m not mistaken. I have a 6000+ and that’s an X2 running at 3 GHz per core and it was/is a dern fine gaming rig for years and years. Much cooler than the Pentium D of the same era; two of those could be use for basement space heaters in the Winter.

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When Microsoft release patch updates they are sort of tested, and with luck will not hurt anyone.

Sometimes patches are bad and major companies lose their system until the system administrators repair the damage.

Sometimes patches kill AMD system but not Intel systems.
It may perhaps happen the other way around as well.

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I go for $ sign. AMD is cheaper by a wide margin.
The money left can be spent on ram and/or faster hard drive. Then the PC for sure will run faster!

The difference on uP performance is nearly undetectable in ordinary consumer uses. By adding more ram, or getting a faster spinning hard drive, the speed of the PC is now ‘feelable’.
Besides, uP (or uPs) is just twisting its thumbs doing nothing most of the time.

But seriously, try get faster clock than more cores.
If you run virtual machines, by all means get more cores.

That’s for ordinary consumers though.
The following information may not be up to date. People in the know may make additions and comments.

For business and complex MS Office works, such as very large Excel files, Intel is better. Intel builds in hardware for Office applications.

The other is uP clock speed.
No matter how you look at it, raw clock speed is SPEED.

Intel once lagged behind AMD in cpu architecture. Intel simply used its semiconductor processing powwow (best technical manufacturer in the world). Kept upping raw clock speed to compensate. Still won speed test games in the market. Still champs, holding off AMD invasion; bought precious time to improve its own uP architecture.

AMD, before all that, hindered by strict patent enforcement from Intel, had a hard time competing on DOS/Windows codes (long instruction set). Then AMD bought a tiny company and implemented its speedy core of reduce-instruction set (RISC).

(I branch out here: Linux, Mac OS, HP OS, are all descendants of Unix codes. ARM, the reduce-instruction set uP, is similar to Unix. Unix is inherently better, IMO)

With the powerful core, AMD ran better on long instruction codes as well!
What AMD did was to run a speedy interpreter converting MS long-instruction codes to reduced-instruction codes. Now the RISC core could run it. And ran it lightning fast.
Two steps, has to be slower over all, you’d say. Well, if your 2-step is fast, and especially the last step is mighty fast … You’d have a life. (And no more patent infringement and law suit harassment to worry about too). Coupled with innovative bus structure and memory bus structure, AMD was actually ahead! (Memory bus and other buses are usually bottlenecks.)

There is no happy ever after fairly tales in business. Yes, AMD caught snoozing. You snooze you lose.
Even Intel is now reduced-instruction core. Ever wonder why Intel chip can now run Apple OS (aka Unix/Linux)?

Root for the small guy if there is not much difference. Besides, market force will not work unless there is competition.

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Your laptop with an AMD A8 5500M 2.1GHz processor is approximately equal in cost to a laptop with an Intel Core i3-2310M 2.1GHz processor. They both sold for around $460 – $500 a year ago and may now be cheaper on close-out prices.

PassMark software runs several tests on processors to determine how well they do on a variety of tasks you might do on your computer at home. The result is a numerical score. The Intel Core i3-2310M Passmark score is 2394, a respectable score. The AMD A8 5500M Passmark score is 3161 which reflects the quad-core’s superior performance, particularly on video and graphics-intensive tasks. The A8 5500M also has slightly better battery life than the previous generation A8.

In practice, both will feel about the same for everyday tasks. You can, of course, do certain jobs where the Intel may finish a little quicker and other jobs where the AMD will finish sooner. Those differences amount to a few seconds here and there unless you are editing /converting large video files or playing 3D games. With video editing and 3D games AMD will perform noticeably better.

There are two other points worth mentioning when it comes to overall performance. I looked up a couple of HP laptops that include the AMD A8 5500M. Each one included 4GB of RAM memory and a generous 750GB hard drive. Now, you probably didn’t buy your laptop just so you could go out and spend even more of your hard-earned money on extras. Nevertheless, please consider the following two upgrades.

First, the fancy graphics chip of your A8 borrows a big chunk of your RAM memory. If you run more than one program at a time, or if you open multiple internet pages, or other memory-intensive or graphics-intensive tasks then adding more memory will noticeably improve your laptop. Your laptop probably has two RAM slots under the removable panel on the bottom. You can do a cheap upgrade by adding a 4GB stick of RAM (in an empty slot or to replace an existing 2GB stick). That should be plenty. Otherwise, replace all of the existing memory with a kit of 2 x 4GB sticks for a total of 8GB. As I said, you will notice the difference if you do a lot of stuff. A 4GB stick of DDR3-1600 costs around $37 at newegg.com. A 2 x 4GB kit costs around $67.

The other consideration is adding an SSD (crazy fast) to replace the existing hard drive (zzzzz … slow). If you can get by with a much smaller capacity get yourself a 120GB SSD for around $89 or a 240GB SSD for around $179. If those are too small consider a Hybrid (hard drive with a small built-in SSD) which is much faster than your exisitng hard drive on all tasks you do frequently. Seagate Solid State Hybrids cost around $79 for 500GB or $119 for 1TB. Either way, they make your laptop go ZOOM ! Keep the existing hard drive as a backup or for storing tons of data. (Some laptops even have a slot for adding a second hard drive but that’s usually on more expensive models).

At home we’ve used a 96GB SSD in a laptop plus a 32GB SD memory card in the card reader slot to hold a bunch of photos and music. Also, we’ve used a Seagate Hybrid 1TB to replace a standard laptop drive. RAM memory was increased to 6GB in one machine and to 8GB in the other. (Our 3 year-old basic dual-core laptop boots up and runs faster than our neighbor’s brand new Intel Core i5 model. After comparing, he immediately ordered a 240GB SSD online to beef up his performance….

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… the fancy graphics chip of your A8 borrows a big chunk of your RAM memory. …

The same applies to the much weaker Intel graphics chip.

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Following up on starvinmarvin’s post, PassMark’s processor speed ratings are available online for virtually all processors at http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php. I find this list extremely useful when planning computer purchases!

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