Community Newsletter: Q&A forum: Ugh! I need help deciphering all those PC processor names and speeds

You can't buy what you ain't got money for!

Start with you budget range, then get the best rated processor for that price range.

But my main point was we have nothing to work with here--No budget and no intended use? There's a big difference in price and specifications between a gaming pc and a pc for school.

You hit perfectly on something I have been griping about for years - now not claiming XP is the greatest, but currently just like other things in our lives - propably the best available.
Unfortunatelly programers keep taking all the speed and design paths that the engeniers at Intell, AMD, and others spend tons of effort to give us and program it away in a few lazy high leverl language key strokes.
XP could by 1/10ths of its size and run faster than it does on a 2.2+ Ghz machine back on my old retired Pentium (heck maybe my older 486 ) if it was written right. Yes it would have taken a bit longer to create, possibly cost more, but my cellphone could then run it.
Maybe new is not always the answer - improved - smaller - faster definatelly would.

Most computer users will find that even a low-end new CPU (eg. Celeron 2.6ghz) is more than adequate for most purposes, although if you opt for the cheapest route, I recommend bumping the RAM up to at least 1GB but preferably 2GB to 4GB RAM. (You would be better off with 2 or 4GB and an Intel Celeron or AMD Sempron than with a Core2/Athlon64 strapped to only 1GB or less of RAM.)

Right now, many reviews point to the Intel Core 2 Duo family as performance leaders, however if you want the best value for your money (best price/performance), the answer isn't quite that simple. The speed of your graphics processor and amount of RAM make a bigger difference than the speed of your CPU for many tasks, especially graphics-intensive 3d environments such as games and virtual worlds. AMD processors are not far behind, and for some tasks an AMD Athlon 64 6000+ or faster can exceed the performance of a 2.1ghz Core 2 processor. I suggest 533Mhz or faster DDR2 RAM, and either an NVidia or ATI graphics card, since they are the two market leaders and have the best support in games and other applications.

I suggest you just make sure that whatever computer you get comes with a minimum of 2GB of RAM (better is 4GB), and dual core, and avoid the Pentium D (it's a high-wattage underperformer compared to the newer Core 2 Duo and Athlon 64 processors). Also, try to get a DirectX-compatible graphics card, if you can, although I don't know of any available at the moment for under $300. You might have to wait for "cheap" (around $100) DX10 cards, or settle for a DX9 card. I bought a Geforce 7100GS card for the Core 2 Duo computer I just built, but am a little disappointed I didn't spend just a little more (say $80 to $100) for a faster card. It seems for good video speed you have to spend around $100 or more. You could also go with cheap, integrated motherboard video for now and add a DX10-compatible card later, especially if you aren't planning on playing the latest 3d games right now.

Check www.TomsHardware.com for reviews; it has a nice CPU chart comparing all the recent CPUs from Intel and AMD.

AMD may well regain the performance lead over Intel in the next couple of months, as they are about to release a new family of CPUs.

As for clock speed as a differentiator, be careful: A 2.1Ghz Core 2 Duo CPU with 4MB cache is far, far faster than a 2.8Ghz Celeron with 256KB of cache. This is due to differences in bus speeds, pipeline sizes, cache size, and architectural changes between the old "NetBurst" architecture used by the P4 and Celeron series, and the newer Core2 series.

Also, with AMD's acquisition of ATI, AMD is now offering some interesting video options in some motherboards, with for example the 690G and 690V chipsets, which may provide better overall value for those who are content with an integrated solution.

Certainly there are many choices for the prospective computer buyer now, but its hard to go too far wrong as long as you get a good-quality motherboard (perhaps ASUS, Gigabyte, maybe Intel, or maybe Abit), reliable RAM (Samsung, Kingston, Micron -- 2GB DDR2 533 or faster), and adequate video for your tasks.

You forget SPARC, ARM, MIPS, PPC, RISC, 68k, IA32, IA64.
What you are doing is naming manufactured types of only two architectures: the Intel x86 and the AMD AMD64.
You don't need two gigabytes to runa desktop. If you do, your system is wasting resources. With that much memory you can: run a host and two virtual environments, act as a host for eight thin clients, run a streaming media server plplus RSS feed + mail server + web server.
With four gigabytes, you should be able to host three small sites or one moderate site.
Why wait for a certain type of card? Is your hardware acceleration layer that slow?
On clock speed: If I am using a processor with rrecursive instruction sets, then I will get the same and better performance than a processor that creates a thousand threads for a few simple programs.

The manufacturer's name has very little to do with performance of any computer. It is the processor + operating system + compatibility + the user.

Frederica,

Great question on processors. Let me try and help.

Within the same processor name, higher Ghz means better performance. BUT, as soon as you move to a differently named processor, all bets are off. So, a 2.4 Ghz Core Duo is faster than a 2.2Ghz Core Duo. But you have no idea how it compares to another processor (e.g. a 2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo or 2.0 Ghz Athlon x2) unless you look up the specs for all of them and that takes some real work.

So, we have to sort out the names. Anything branded "Celeron" from Intel means its their lowest end processor. So, whether its "Celeron", "Celeron D" or Celeron X", its Intel's lowest end stuff. And lowest end means worst performance and worst battery life.

Intel's best processor now has a "Core" Brand (e.g. its no longer "Pentium"). But to make life confusing there are a bunch of different "Core" names. "Core 2" is a generation ahead of "Core" and typically about 15% faster. So, if you want the best, you want "Core 2". Intel also uses either a "Solo" or "Duo" suffix with the Core brand to indicate the # of processor cores in each CPU. So, their best CPU is a "Core 2 Duo", and their lowest performance "Core" CPU is a "Core Solo". Easy huh?

AMD uses a different track. While Intel uses "Core", AMD uses "Athlon". And while Intel uses "Solo and Duo", AMD has decided to simply use "X2" to mean 2 processor cores in one chip. So that means an AMD Athlon X2 is AMD's best.

Now, finally you have to compare Intel's best (Core 2 Duo) with AMD's best (Athlon x2). And the benchmarks show that Intel's mobile processors are generally better than AMDs in terms of performance and battery life.

So in sum, I'd recommend Intel CPUs for a laptop. And then you should decide how much money you want to spend. For myself, I typically chose the best family of processor (not the highest Ghz) with the best price. So, I'd choose the lowest price system that meets your needs which uses any speed available for the Core 2 Duo processor.

See, wasn't that simple!

Start looking some forum. RAM enhancers work like oil on engines. Cheaper than a new processor and will work too for your next processor.

Thank You Please. Your reply or I can call it a guide about
processors is excellent.

Can you tell us more - Is it safe to use regedit by a layman
if not your detailed guide is needed.

Raghavan

Gogodo wrote that "Most home users don't have a real reason to care about which processor".

Well, I disagree. With developers/programmers these days adding on all types of "add-on" software - anything from "toolbars", to very complex (processer hungry) AntiVirus programs, even the average user does need to care.

I'm not sure I like it, but it is sort of "if it's there, let's use it", at least from a developers's standpoint.
If you want to gracefully run the latest OS, add on the latest updates, and run even basic antivirus, spyware, firewall, privacy, search, iTunes, your favorite photo application, and you name it software, you will need a decent processor - at least as long as you are not going to pull your hair in frustration over the slow speed/response.

There are so many (unnecessary?) processes being loaded at boot-up these days, so the more power you have, the better off you'll be.

Not even Linux is immune to this. More efficient yes, but even the most common/popular distros of Linux carries a lot of extra (dead) "weight" and requires some horsepower to be utilized w/o frustration.

I think "KEITH KRESSEN" wrote a good summary. Only needed to be really emphasized is to buy as much (processor) you can afford. Everything else (drives, memory, monitor, peripherals) can easily be upgraded, but you might be stuck with the wrong/old processor if you go on the cheap.

In re to"No need for a lot of capability at home, come now you forget that Vista's lowest version is going to be very demanding on memory and graphics.

first how much money do you have to send on a pc?what is your pc going to be used for?general,gaming,etc.you need to learn about what you are about to buy!myself i use a new HP a1730n its a 32 bit system with a good bite.2.4 pro.,2 g's of ram,vista osp,my 4600----64x2-----does me a good job,i like the gaming end of my pc with out the hight price of some of the systems out there.check out the MFG web sight.that will help you the most.------------John

One to two years ago AMD was leading in the high end CPU market. Back then AMD was the way to go for high end enthusiasts. AMD's Athlon X2's beat Intel's Pentium 4's at almost every price point. Since then things have swung back towards Intel, with their Core 2 Duos beating out the best AMD has to offer, however for mainstream/low cost performance in my opinion, AMD is the way to go.

Thank you, thank you for that brilliantly simple answer. I too was muddled when it came to choosing a processor---but you've made it so much simpler

My laptp uses an AMD Turion 64 X2, but what does the turion stand for? Thats the olny thing you didn't cover. Any information is helpful.

What an awesome break down of what's available in todays world of processors. Keith, you made it all make sense in layman terms. BIG THANKS!!!