CPU Speed comparisons

[D.Hayden]

Any site out there that compares CPU speeds?

Looking for basic stuff..

Like AMD 9650 vs Intel 9300.

Thanks.. Dave

[vluc]

Tom's Hardware

[Graham Smith]

Any site out there that compares CPU speeds?

The CPU speed is only part of it. Everything has to work as a unit - CPU speed, cache, bus speed, memory, etc. You can get a fast CPU but it means nothing if the rest of the pieces aren't a match to it.

Another real big issue is video - a lot of chip sets include video which uses shared CPU and memory - less expensive but at the cost of performance.

You're also going to get hung up trying to compare CPU speed between Intel and AMD because the architecture is quite different and the spec out very differently as well. Generally speaking the AMD is going to outperform the Intel in a straight $$ to $$ comparison, but that's also going to put a limit on your choice of vendor.

And there is a huge difference between desktop and laptop chip sets - with very different points of comparison.

So, don't get too hung up on CPU speed - figure out your budget then look for a package of well integrated components. And yes, Toms Hardware has some good information.

Edited September 8, 2009 by Graham Smith

[vluc]

Well put, Graham.

I just built a new system and my 775 processor CPU speed is slower than my old 478 chip processor (2.8 vs 3.0). But the new one is a quad core and blows away my overclocked old system. Add a GTX 260 video card where its' GPU takes away many of the video related processes that used to be handled by the CPU itself, and you have systems that fly.

Edited September 8, 2009 by vluc

[D.Hayden]

Thanks much.. that's a pretty good site.. information is a bit old.. but who can keep up..

The CPU is the only peice I didn't know.. and that site let me know how much slower the AMD chip was... thanks...

[Classic_jon]

Well said Grahm,

As someone who has managed two computer stores and been a partner in one of them... the key in any system is to eliminate the bottlenecks wherever they are.

Bang for your $$ AMD has the crown but some of the new gen of Intel processors are faster if you are willing to spend the $$ for it.

If you are going to run the current windows OS (windows XP or Vista) I would stick with the dual core processors that are at the money break point and are the fastest thing you can afford. If you look at places like newegg you can sort it by price and figure out where the price points are to get the most bang for your buck. the reason I say this is that most of the current windows OS only support up to two processors and "most people" will not use the power of a quad core for home processing. (notice I said most! lol!!)

I would recommend a good quality vid card, 2gb of ram minimum, and a vid card that can be replaced as technology advances. Surprisingly enough, the vid card makes a *huge* difference in the responsiveness of the system with the video power hungry Vista.

Hope that helps!

[D.Hayden]

I'll be running Windows 7.. system has 8GB of memory..

I'm more of a server guy, I'll have to look at the video cards closer.. thanks!

[D.Hayden]

Here's the video card choices, I'd appreciate any recommendations on these, if it's worth it to upgrade.

Integrated graphics - Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X4500 [VGA] Included in price

512MB NVIDIA GeForce G210 [DVI, HDMI, VGA] +$41.00

512MB ATI Radeon HD 4350 [DVI, HDMI, VGA adapter] +$51.00

1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 [DVI, HDMI, VGA] +$90.00

1GB ATI Radeon HD 4650 [DVI, HDMI, VGA] +$100.00

1.5GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 230 [DVI, HDMI, VGA] +$150.00

I don't play games, primarily web client/server development, SQL Server development

[vluc]

I don't play games much anymore, but I go for the best card I can find. I do watch movies and other things on my puter, so I want the best vid quality I can get.

I like Nvidia, which is why I went with the GTX 260. Could have done the 280, but there comes a point when you have to say enough to the dollars going out!

LOL! My off-shooting season project is already done, waiting for Win7 to come out in October so I can load it over the Win7 RC1!

Edited September 8, 2009 by vluc

[Graham Smith]

Here's the video card choices, I'd appreciate any recommendations on these, if it's worth it to upgrade.

Integrated graphics - Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X4500 [VGA] Included in price

512MB NVIDIA GeForce G210 [DVI, HDMI, VGA] +$41.00

512MB ATI Radeon HD 4350 [DVI, HDMI, VGA adapter] +$51.00

1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 [DVI, HDMI, VGA] +$90.00

1GB ATI Radeon HD 4650 [DVI, HDMI, VGA] +$100.00

1.5GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 230 [DVI, HDMI, VGA] +$150.00

Unless you are going to be installing the 64 bit version of Windows 7, anything more than 4GB is, literally, useless. And you will likely find that you will not gain that much from the 64 bit version unless you are using one or more 64 bit programs that can really take advantage of it.

If you are not doing graphics intensive stuff, like games or heavy photoshop stuff, either of the 512 cards should be adequate, and yes they are worth the upgrade price. You can check, but I think both of those also support dual monitors.

Edited September 8, 2009 by Graham Smith

[adweisbe]

IMO the sweet spot is the cheapest i7 you can get. 4 cores + hyperthreading is very good stuff and it will get better as software improves. You also get a big bump in memory bandwidth vs. other architectures. I don't recommend going the dual core route because most users can generate enough interesting threads for a quad-core to be more responsive. If you are like most users and have several busy apps running at once then you will see a big step up in responsiveness as the number of hardware threads go up. How many hardware threads you will benefit from is entirely determined by your usage pattern.

Dell Studio XPS is the easiest and possibly cheapest way to get an i7. If you don't play games then go with the cheapest graphics card you can get and turn Aero off.

[UW Mitch]

Intel just launched the new Lynnfield processor yesterday (Core i5 750) - basically is "Nahelem (Core i7) for the masses".

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634

~Mitch

[Classic_jon]

IMO the sweet spot is the cheapest i7 you can get. 4 cores + hyperthreading is very good stuff and it will get better as software improves. You also get a big bump in memory bandwidth vs. other architectures. I don't recommend going the dual core route because most users can generate enough interesting threads for a quad-core to be more responsive. If you are like most users and have several busy apps running at once then you will see a big step up in responsiveness as the number of hardware threads go up. How many hardware threads you will benefit from is entirely determined by your usage pattern.

Dell Studio XPS is the easiest and possibly cheapest way to get an i7. If you don't play games then go with the cheapest graphics card you can get and turn Aero off.

I will agree with you on the quad core, IF and only if, the OS he is going to use will support it "correctly." I have seen time and again someone buy a quad core or quad to eight way server and only use an OS that will support half of the processors. Same goes for RAM, if you are using more than 3 to 3.5GB of RAM *including your vid card RAM* then it will just be extra that will not be used by the OS if it is a 32 bit OS or you have the switch turned on to somewhat make use of it. At that point you need to get a 64 bit OS to really make use of all that power. As I said above, you can throw a lot of $$ at it and get a lot of speed but not be able to use it properly or to it's fullest potential OR you can go in and buy a good high end system that does not have bottlenecks and use it for a good long time. Most of my main desktops I keep for about 5 years by following that principle. Only thing I have done to my current box in the last 5 years is upgrade the vid card to a 512mb one and add a GB of ram to take it to 3GB.

The final decision is up to you though as to how much $$ you want to spend and what the OS being used is capable of.

[AustinMike]

As others have said, don't get too hung up on CPU speed. I test server systems for a living and Hyperthreading is over rated IMO. Quad cores are cool if you have the OS, apps, and drivers to take advantage. It really comes down to your intended application and what the hardware as a whole is capable of. I've seen some crazy stuff lately. For example, I've seen some heinous architectural problems on certain chipsets that actually cripple transaction performance when adding a second CPU. This was with applications that we have specifically written to take advantage of multiple cores. I routinely see drivers that will lock onto a single core, preventing further performance scaling once the core is saturated. There can also be bottlenecks throughout the system board. I have seen fairly recent samples of stupid things like slapping a Gig Ethernet port or two behind legacy 32-bit bridges (only about half the bandwidth needed to fully utilize available bandwidth on Gig E.) Block diagrams of system boards are downright amusing sometimes! Since few people ever run at the data rates we do in test, I guess the hardware companies just do things like that and hope nobody notices.

Try to find benchmarks that approximate your intended usage (gaming, video editing, database...) for a board, CPU, and video combination that you're interested in.