I'd check these out before making the jump to i7.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/2011 … s_Revealed.html

The performance differential between the new Bulldozer architecture and the Phenom II brings AMD at least on par with i7 and knowing AMD will likely be much cheaper.

I'm not sure what the problem is with your USB stick, but it should have nothing to with the CPU. Are you doing an apples to apples comparison? Which USB ports are on your AMD system? 2.0 or 3.0? If your AMD system has 2.0 ports and you're testing against a system with 3.0 ports, then there might be a difference in access times simply due to the higher bandwith of the 3.0 ports.

On my tests all USB ports are 2.0 only. I will keep in mind the new bulldozer architecture.

sliderider wrote:

it should have nothing to with the CPU. Are you doing an apples to apples comparison? Which USB ports are on your AMD system? 2.0 or 3.0? If your AMD system has 2.0 ports and you're testing against a system with 3.0 ports, then there might be a difference in access times simply due to the higher bandwith of the 3.0 ports.

Of course it is not the CPU. It is the southbridge chipset that controls the USB. eL_PuSHeR already identified which chipsets he tried.

collector wrote:

sliderider wrote:

it should have nothing to with the CPU. Are you doing an apples to apples comparison? Which USB ports are on your AMD system? 2.0 or 3.0? If your AMD system has 2.0 ports and you're testing against a system with 3.0 ports, then there might be a difference in access times simply due to the higher bandwith of the 3.0 ports.

Of course it is not the CPU. It is the southbridge chipset that controls the USB. eL_PuSHeR already identified which chipsets he tried.

He also said he was switching to Intel i7 and made it appear as if this was a deciding factor in that decision when it shouldn't be.

The ICHx.x chipsets are on Intel CPU boards and the thread was about USB performance, not necessarily CPUs. As such, the discussion should be more based on the southbridge. I, too, have noticed poorer USB performance on the AMD boards and not just the nForce chips.

That said, the Intel chipsets are not the only reason to consider an i7. I've had several machines in a row that were AMD and liked them. They gave me the most bang at the time, but for some time now AMD has been lagging behind Intel performance wise. This may not always be the case and I certainly hope that AMD can surpass Intel again at some point in the future. I do not want to return to the days of Intel being the only game in town, slowly doling out tiny increments of performance improvement at premium prices.

I am not going to get into some fanboi argument and I am not completely dismissing AMD, but I am also not so much a fanboi that I can't objectively consider what gives me the most bang and until the AMD CPUs prove, once again to be at least on par with Intel's, I'll stick with my i7. It runs circles around any AMD machine I've seen currently available. In the future, who knows?

I never knew USB 2.0 performance could differ so significantly between different platforms, though it's logical to assume that is it a possibility.

I know VIA often had sub-par performance and sometimes had troubles with their drivers, but NForce had troubles of it's own. Theres also SiS of course but can't comment on that as the most modern SiS board I ever used (for a very short time) was a Socket 7.

i7 is of course better in almost every way, but it's a moot point if you can't afford it and/or don't even get to notice it's differences.
For me, i7 is too expensive anyway and it's superior performance not an issue as I mostly use Internet and play a couple older games.

AMD might have mostly caught up with Intel and NV with their 800 series chipsets. Reviews look pretty good. The 700 and older chipsets though were behind on both SATA and USB compared to NV and Intel.

If you go back to the SB450 things get really ugly.

You are right. I was referring mainly to Southbridge performance. Haven't checked newer AMD chipsets, as Swaaye hinted. They are probably better/faster.

I am well aware my current AMD chipsets are quite outdated by now.

And for the test I booted a livecd from an usb stick and it loaded about 200% faster on the Intel chipset. That's quite a noticeable difference.

I have setup a number of 780G boxes and felt the slight sluggishness. I also have a GF8200 board and it has always seemed faster to me.

About the USB boot though, some boards boot in USB 1.1. I have a P35 board that does that. Slow.

Mine boot in USB 2.0 (1.1 would be painfully slow), but the Intel boards boot faster.

USB 1.1 is about 1MB/s. That won't make things abysmally slow but it is annoying. The 780G and P35 Gigabyte boards that I have used are clearly not at USB 2.0 until some time later in the boot process when I assume the OS loads its USB drivers.

This isn't the chipsets fault though because I have also used an ASUS 780G mobo and a HP 690G notebook and they boot USB much faster than my Gigabyte boards. Blame the BIOS, I think.

Yes, probably a BIOS issue. Remember that you have additional hidden BIOS option on Gigabyte boards by pressing CTRL-F1 on BIOS main screen. You will notice menus are extended.

eL_PuSHeR wrote:

Does anybody have any ideas why is this? Are USB implementation fucked up on AMD?

Sort of. Intel just does USB much better. Always has.

Personally I don't see any difference in USB 2.0 speeds between my AM3 (780G) and Core 2 (P965) systems.

Like I said earlier, recent AMD southbridges are pretty much equal to Intel and NV. SB600 and older are the problem chipsets.

I have tested the same Live USB stick with the other ASUS board I have (nForce 720a Northbridge) and it performed good. So, yes, newest AMD chipsets are better.

Sorry,dude its ur pc problem.
I also have got AMD & no problem occurs with it.
Unless AMD is better than Intel.
AMd's price,speed,performance all things r best.

If you buy an Asrock board, it comes with this XFast USB software. This works quite well, speeds up the data transfer. It's especially effective for lots of small files.

I never noticed any speed disadvantage from using a non-Intel chipset as I never owned an Intel system faster then a P3. But if it's true, then I'll just have to say "Intel +1"! (and that coming from a 'sorta' AMD fanboy 😜)