If you have a intels chip, you have nowadays an extra heater. i have now a full amd build just because linux compatibility and energy efficiency.
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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Unless it’s an Intel T model. I’ve built plenty of HTPCs and mini-PCs using passive coolers on them. Those are great.
You don't even need a T model for that. You can take a higher powered model and manually set the power limits to what the T model would use. This doesn't even come with that big of a performance hit either - for all the power Intel dumps into the K models, it's only gaining them a few percent in additional performance.
My entire Proxmox setup is all dell micro i5 T models. 35w, 64gb memory and room for a 2.5gbe addon. I love them.
With electricity being cheaper then gas, having an Intel powered space heater that doubles as a gaming PC is more cost effective to heat my gaming room.
/S
I like to do my video transcoding on cold winter days. That keeps it nice and warm under my desk.
I mean i dont know where you live, but the power bills are just getting higher and higher. Because of missmanaged energy grid of my country.
With solar is it cheaper.
Should get some batteries though...
I dont know from where you get all those cheap solar panels. On my house roof there is for 8 solar panels place and to get even with initial costs it would need to be 100% efficient for straight 5 years.
Australia. Kinda cheating in the solar arena.
All TDPs/max clocks can be tuned up and down, Intel just sets theirs ridiculously high out of the box. You can turn a 7950X into a space heater, or throttle the newest Intel chips to sip power.
Also, idle power is realy awful for my 7800X3D. It's way better with Intel.
...That being said, you are not wrong about linux compatibility. And the X3D chips in particular really hit a task energy sweet spot in the right workloads.
I believe that Intel reaches lower idle power in general, but yes, not under load. I think the focus of the previous and next gen was on power use though, so we'll see what happens.
AMD (at older CPUs) do have pretty high idle power usage.
I have a battery system for my desktop (I live in Ukraine, russian our electricity system) and my 5800X desktop doesn't go below 140 W or so (with monitor being off and active background services on the HDDs).
Huh, interesting. I have an AMD ryzen 7 series and I've tested my power usage in the past. The whole system including 3 monitors iirc averaged 120 W. I might be misremembering but I don't think I'm off by much
Does AMD make a good low power CPU? Have been thinking of getting an N150 mini PC. Low price and very low power usage. Use it for self hosting a bit.
Maybe the A series?
The AI Max series is a beast and that with super low voltage + really good gaming, computing its just perfect. (See Framework desktop ) (For me a whole gaming pc, under 400 watts of power is a low powered pc. When a comparable intel + nvidia pc needs at least 700-900 watts
Not sure if you understood my message, looking for something that is low power usage. Like tens of watts peak. Not many hundreds of them.
I mean with intel you wont find that either
The N150 I was talking about in my initial comment
From what I've seen, the lowest power (well, TDP) that AMD targets is 15-28W (e.g., AMD Ryzen™ AI 5 330). They do not really have an equivalent to the N-chips of intel, which are all Gracemont E-cores (severely cut down in performance). The zen 4c/5c cores are not really equivalent to the Intel E cores (much more powerful), hence they do not have a core that targets a low performance + low power target such as intel N100/N150. The competitor for those would be ARM.
ARM is a potential option, but x86 can be pretty nice to have.
You'll want one of their monolithic chips that's intended for laptops. They do sell some of these chips as desktop models, such as the APUs, but a lot of the mini-desktop AMD systems I've seen straight up use a mobile chip in them.
With that said, AMD doesn't really sell anything that competes directly with things like the N150.
Im surprised at how slow the progress is, but I guess decades of deals and mindshare take a long time to erode.
What this says to me, which kinda points to the craziness of the stock market, is that Intel could probably pull out of this in a sane world with half a decade of runway, yet due to investors losing interest, they might not.
I mean, don't underestimate Intel's corporate dysfunction. The more I read, the more it seems like its Game of Thrones amongst managment. Their hardware and software work is great, but scattered and disrupted and mismanaged straight to hell.
...I speak as a very sad Intel stockholder, heh.
Intel has lots of time to turn it around. But since they have not even started, it is hard to know if they will.
I was buying a new mono recently and mentioned intel and the guy was lik: "we don't even really carry that many intel boards anymore."
I have literally never bought an Intel CPU and don't plan on it. AMD has always been great and has always been much cheaper. I'm shocked their marketshare is so low. They make great processors.
AMD has always been great and has always been much cheaper.
My good mam/sir/whatever, were you perhaps in a coma during the bulldozer era?
its very clear blind brand loyalty has caused extensive brain rot.
These companies don't care about any of us, intel or AMD. We, individually, are only rounding errors in their account books. They arent gonna ask us to prom if we ask them to be exclusive.
Buy whats best at the moment, What has the best bang for the buck, or what have you. Thats how you keep the market good, thats how you keep companies from sliding into complacency. Thats how you make them stay on their toes to constantly stay relevant and innovate, So they can capture your next purchase.
100% this. AMD is currently better for laptops/desktops, but my plex is running an Intel because AMD has nothing even close to Quick Sync for video transcoding.
I mean, they literally do. My old HD 7950 had hardware encoding.
The quality is a bit behind, but AFAIK the biggest problem is that software just doesn't support/expose it as well, and hasn't ironed out bugs. And that the desktop CPUs don't include it.
Weird logic. I couldn't care less if it has solution to world's hunger if I can't access it.
I realize some amd processors might have hardware video transcoders, but they are not even close to Intel's quick sync. Fact.
I didn't really make any claims about why. I don't care. I was just supporting another person's excellent observation that brand loyalty is idiotic and only way to influence the market is to vote with your wallet.
if I can't access it.
but they are not even close to Intel’s quick sync. Fact.
AMD hardware encoding is supported in tons of apps. In terms of quality, the AV1 encoding specifically seems to be between Nvidia and Intel last gen: https://www.pcworld.com/article/1434166/amd-rdna-3-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-content-creation-review.html
And got significantly better this gen.
The problem is on Plex for not supporting AMD hardware encoding , and it's... not really clear why they don't? AFAIK Plex is MPV based, so it should support it out of the box.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that, whenever it's time to buy again, its best to re-evaluate. And not assume, say, only Intel has good transcoding hardware.
I didn't mean for that to come off as abrasive or anything (and fact is AMD VCE doesn't work for Plex specifically for whatever reason, which is a huge problem), but it's also a little microcosm of why Nvidia has like 95% market share. Shoppers's perception of products is not necessarily up to date, and its all too easy to make assumptions based on brands.
100% agree with the last thing you said about checking latest info before buying, but...
I stand by what I said about nothing AMD makes being even close to QS. Pretty much the only two reasons to need server side transcoding at a level where CPU is still relevant is
- Plex and clones.
- Security cameras.
There's nothing worth mentioning that works with AMD.
My N150 is transcoding 9 4k streams from cameras 24/7 and easily handles another 1 or 2 4k streams when plex needs it. All at <10W. At this load, it almost never goes above 50% cpu consumption.
I'll definitely check current offerings if I ever need to replace my setup, but right now, AMD basically doesn't exist in this market.
Is it brand loyalty if you just always prefer to know that you're going to spend $100 less and get comparable performance? That's my only reason for supporting AMD the way I do. If things change then so will my opinion.
AMD has had more than one absolute stinker in that time frame. Bulldozer and its refinements were so fucking awful that it almost killed AMD as a company.. it was only a desperate dice roll on Zen that brought AMD back into relevance.
So yes, arguing with verifiable facts to push the "AMD has always been the best 4 evar" is indeed blind, foolish brand loyalty.
I couldn't give a shit less what you think
There there, no need to be so angry over having your bullshit called out.
Keep on writing words like they mean anything
and yet you keep coming back, reading my post, and replying.
You're very unique. Never heard that one before. Also, I promise, this REALLY bothers me. So you know, keep jerkin it to that idea
Sure buddy.
Yeah for a moment AMD was literal trash next to Intel. Up until Ryzen
And it still took them a generation to start being perceived as real competition outside of some niche cases.
I can only speak for the ~5 AMD cpus I've bought. Not sure what you're referring to. I tend to keep the same processor for ~5 years
If that is the case, and this goes back 25 years, then there is no way for you to have avoided that era, which leaves me confused as to your statement.
The 'do💤er era of sleep was between 2011 to 2017.
I think that is literally the time between desktop upgrades for me. I was more into Mac laptops then, but I've learned better since.
"Always" is a bit strong. AMD has been the obvious choice since Ryzen, but 10 years != always.