# processor difference



## GodsOtherHand (Jun 15, 2009)

looking over the internet i found lots of people argueing that theyr 2.2amd processor runs alot faster than theyr 2.6ghz Intel processor, and vice-versa.
I am asking...given a bunch of processors.. intel pentium M, or pentium 4, or AMD turion, or athlon... if they have the same frequency, same cache...and fitted in a compatible motherboard.. Which would be faster? Would there be any idfference?
Because, from what i know, a 2.2 Ghz processor does 2.2 multiplyed by 10 to the power of 9 (i think) calculations per second, right? so there should not be any difference, regardless of manufacturer.
Also, this remains the same when talking about multi-core processors? 
How about when multi-core versus one core? (where all the cores combined have the same frequency as the one core of the second processor) ?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Depends on the Processor class, a Athlon 64 2.2 was faster then a 2,6 Pentium 4, current CPU's the Intel CPU's have the edge when comparing i7 to Phenom II, Calc's per second is one item but there is also the bus speed/size on how much data can move through the CPU at one time, how how the chipset handles video communication is another consideration, from Athlon 64/Pentium 4 specs to current are worlds apart.


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## LMiller7 (Jun 21, 2010)

It would be nice if CPU performance could be compared simply according to the clock speed. It would be simple and purely objective. But this is the real world and things are not that simple.

Many CPU instructions can run at clock speed. But a read problem is that the instructions and data they operate on must at some point come from RAM, which doesn't operate at anywhere near that speed. That is why there are Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 caches. The design, size, and speed of these caches has a major influence on performance. And the advantages of one design over another isn't always clear-cut. And there is more.

Adding CPU cores complicates this even more. CPU cores do not combine to improve performance, rather they provide more resources to the OS and applications to get things done. How much multiple cores will improve performance is heavily dependent on the workload type, and that itself is often highly dynamic. In theory a dual core CPU would could approach twice the performance of a singe. But a singe thread CPU bound process will show virtually no improvement with multiple cores, but it would improve system responsiveness which may be more important to the user than raw performance.

I am by no means an expert on this. Others will no doubt add more.


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## noszeratul (Jul 24, 2009)

How about this a AMD Phenom IIII 9550 Quad Core At 2.20ghz?


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## gcavan (Aug 13, 2009)

Just to be clear, the correct name of that proc is Phenom X4 9550. Now, . . . what about it?


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## noszeratul (Jul 24, 2009)

How is the X2 Better then a X4??


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Compared to what x2 cpu?
The original Phenom 9xxx where not good performers faster clock speed x2 CPU's would out perform them because most programs do not need 4 cores.


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## noszeratul (Jul 24, 2009)

a Phenom x2 with a Phenom x4...


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## gcavan (Aug 13, 2009)

No such animal as a Phenom X2.

AMD dual cores of that generation were named either Athlon X2 or Athlon 64 X2 or Sempron X2


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## noszeratul (Jul 24, 2009)

SO a Phenom II is better then a Phenom X4?.....how so ?


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## Markgg88 (Jan 7, 2011)

You're getting this wrong. Phenom II are currently the second generation of AMD Phenom CPU's which are an improvement over the first Phenom generation, it does not signify the amount of cores the CPU has. X4 means it's a quad core, X2 means it's a dual core.


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## noszeratul (Jul 24, 2009)

Ohhh so it could be a Phenom II x4?


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## Markgg88 (Jan 7, 2011)

Yes, exactly.


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## noszeratul (Jul 24, 2009)

Nice, thx. Now i got ya...


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## bindudhindsa (Mar 3, 2007)

Thanks for such a nice discussion guys , its very valuable information about processors here .. i guess in this kind of discussion anybody can jump in ...am i right ?? Anyways please let me know if i can ask any question in here or should i start my own thread for that ?


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## noszeratul (Jul 24, 2009)

Why another when u have this one...


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## bindudhindsa (Mar 3, 2007)

Thanks, could anybody please explain me in simple words what exactly is hyperthreading technology in CPU these days and how it is better than previous CPU ?? Sorry but this is against the TSF rule to jump in somebody's else thread


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## gcavan (Aug 13, 2009)

From Wiki-Pedia



> Hyper-threading is an Intel-proprietary technology used to improve parallelization of computations (doing multiple tasks at once) performed on PC microprocessors. For each processor core that is physically present, the operating system addresses two virtual processors, and shares the workload between them when possible.


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## bindudhindsa (Mar 3, 2007)

In simple words if i have a quad core processors , OS would address it as 8 virtual processors and share the workload among 8 virtual processors.


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

Assuming you use an Intel chip. There is some argument as to whether it's worth it and in some cases it actually hurts overall performance.


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## bindudhindsa (Mar 3, 2007)

if we compare with any quad core processor like Q8300 vs i5 quad core processor with hyper threading technology , which one you guys wud recommend and why ??


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## bindudhindsa (Mar 3, 2007)

I guess this hyper threading technology is only in intel , so do you wanna share in which case it actually hurt overall performance. Do you have any personal experience about it and did you hear from the internet ??? and which exactly processor we are talking about ??


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

i series CPU's are faster the the C2D/C2Q's I would not rush out to replace say a Q9550 with an i7 but if your building a new system the i series is the correct choice.
Hyperthreading would not be a determining factor, if the thread is lightly loaded it allows the see/use it as 2 thread at once, catch is if it's lightly loaded there probably isn't anything else to feed it


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## bindudhindsa (Mar 3, 2007)

Let's take example of this processor 

Intel Core i5 760 Quad Core Processor Lynnfield LGA1156 2.8GHZ 8MB

when it says 2.8Ghz and quad core , what would be the total frequency of processor .. would it be 2.8 * 4 (for each core) or each core can go up to 2.8 GHz max ??


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Each of the 4 cores runs 2.8ghz, you don't add them together.
Most applications including games do not use 4 cores simultaneously, you'll often see 1 or 2 cores running 70-80% with 2 cores less then 10%, video editing/rendering software is one of the few that will run 4 simultaneous cores and make a large difference in rendering times. Also other open programs will run on other cores so if you game and use ventrillo for example a quad will speed things up.


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## noszeratul (Jul 24, 2009)

Intel Vs AMD..... Classic Discussion.


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