Intel Haswell vs AMD Richland head-to-head

It's a busy time of year in the world of processors, with heavyweights Intel and AMD squaring up to each other with their flagship silicon. Intel's Haswell chips raise the bar in performance, but is Richland the cheaper and smarter alternative? IT Pro investigates.

Before we delve into the results, here's a bit of background. Haswell processors replace last year's Ivy Bridge chips, and they're appearing in a huge range of devices, from high-end PCs and workstations to Ultrabooks and Windows 8 tablets.

AMD's Richland range counters this. The new range of Accelerated Processing Units, or APUs designs puts the processor and full-fat graphics core onto one chip. Richland can't match Haswell's high-end performance, but they're efficient, affordable chips that'll find their way into a host of desktop machines, laptops and tablets.

To make it easier to navigate, this head-to-head is broken down into the following sections. Simply click through the pages or jump to the relevant sections using the links below:

Mike Jennings

 

Mike Jennings has worked as a technology journalist for more than a decade and has been fascinated by computers since childhood, when he spent far too long building terrible websites. He loves desktop PCs, components, laptops and anything to do with the latest hardware.

Mike worked as a staff writer at PC Pro magazine in London for seven years, and during that time wrote for a variety of other tech titles, including Custom PC, Micro Mart and Computer Shopper. Since 2013, he’s been a freelance tech writer, and writes regularly for titles like Wired, TechRadar, Stuff, TechSpot, IT Pro, TrustedReviews and TechAdvisor. He still loves tech and covers everything from the latest business hardware and software to high-end gaming gear, and you’ll find him on plenty of sites writing reviews, features and guides on a vast range of topics.

You can email Mike at mike@mike-jennings.net, or find him on Twitter at @mikejjennings