How is CPU speed/power measured?

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GrannySmith1

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Apr 9, 2013
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When comparing CPUs and seeing which one is faster/better for gaming, what do you look at? Is it ONLY GHZ that determines the CPU's power or is it more the number of cores it has?

If a CPU say was 3ghz and had 4 cores would an 8core cpu with say 2ghz be much faster? Is each core at 2ghz?
 
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corbeau

corbeau

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The frequency of the processor can only be compared with CPUs of the same architecture. For instance a 3rd gen I5 at 3.4 GHz is faster than a 3rd gen I5 at 2.8 GHz, however an AMD Piledriver clocked at 3.4 GHz is not necessarily faster than an I5 clocked a 2.8 GHz. When comparing processors of a different architecture Instructions Per Cycle matter, the number of cores, and to some degree the clock rate (especially if your not overclocking). For gaming at the moment most games use four cores and under, but that is changing. The best thing to do when comparing processors is to look at how the processor performs on the games you want to play. There are some pretty good benchmarks here under the chart section.
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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It's not that simple. Even with the same number of cores and the same speed (Ghz), two CPUs aren't necessarily equal. Depends on the architecture and efficiency of each. For instance, back in the days you could compare single core CPUs (forget about multi-core for now) and one would be faster than the other even with lower clock speed. Why? Because of efficiency. For example, one could compete a task or calculate something in 5 steps, while the other would require 20 steps to do the same thing. So speed tells you nothing on efficiency. Back in the days some RISK processors clocked at only 400Mhz could calculate certain math faster than Pentiums with 2 Ghz of speed. Also, sometimes a type of CPU can be better at certain task, while another can look better at doing something else. Now, back to gaming, the same thing applies here, you were also asking about number of cores? Once again, not that simple, certain games support only 1 core, other support only 2, some will support 3, some new titles will support 4 or above, etc... Same thing with software in general, not all applications on your PC are optimized to take advantage of multi-cores. You really need to look at what software and games you'll be using.

Edit: Haha! Same thing here corbeau beat me to it.
 
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