Difference between current gen CPU's and older gen CPU's

zeitsef

Commendable
Dec 28, 2016
7
0
1,510
So I currently upgraded my graphics card to a RX-480 (8gb vram 1388 clock) so I can play some newer generation games, and I'm witnessing a serious CPU bottleneck similar to a video comparison illustrated here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ORecRaj8gY (by the way I have a very similar CPU to the video's) -> X4 II 955 3.2GHz 8mb cache

So naturally I check for upgrades but one thing that baffles me is that a lot of the newer gen CPU's have similar or really close specs (Number of Cores, Core Clock and Memory Cache) with mine, so my question is if someone can explain to me in what way are these newer CPU's better.

So you know I don't argue that they aren't, I just want to know the technical details, so please be as thorough as you can with them so I can understand.

Thank you for your time in advance!!!

 
Solution
Frequency and core count are the obvious aspects of a CPU, but what goes on inside a core varies a lot.

Let's say CPU 1 runs at 3ghz and CPU 2 runs at 2ghz. CPU 1 needs two cycles to do a specific complex math operation, while CPU 2 needs only one cycle because of architectural changes. Because of this, CPU 2 will be able to do 33% more of these math operations than CPU 1 in the same amount of time, despite having a much lower frequency.

Anandtech does some great deep dives into architectural improvements. You might try reading these:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10158/the-intel-xeon-e5-v4-review/3

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-architecture

v4_IPCimprov_575px.png
...
Frequency and core count are the obvious aspects of a CPU, but what goes on inside a core varies a lot.

Let's say CPU 1 runs at 3ghz and CPU 2 runs at 2ghz. CPU 1 needs two cycles to do a specific complex math operation, while CPU 2 needs only one cycle because of architectural changes. Because of this, CPU 2 will be able to do 33% more of these math operations than CPU 1 in the same amount of time, despite having a much lower frequency.

Anandtech does some great deep dives into architectural improvements. You might try reading these:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10158/the-intel-xeon-e5-v4-review/3

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-architecture

v4_IPCimprov_575px.png


V4_crypto_575px.png


v4_postedinterrupt_575px.png


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haswellfrontend.png
 
Solution