cpu speeds in the last 7 years

[philipchild]

Hello,
I am about to purchase a new computer as I haven't bought a new one in 7 years. What I am wondering is, ignoring dual core/ duel proc cpus, have the core speeds of cpus really improved much in the last 7 years? I currently have P4 2.5mhz chip and it seems that most of the chips around today have similar clock speeds to this. I realize that cache sizes have increased which should boost performance, but vaguely what sort of single threaded performance increase could I expect to get by replacing my old P4 system with a decent high end cpu based system?
Sorry to be so general but I am just trying to get an idea of the change in technology since I last researched it.

Thanks,

Philip

Oh, just to add some context to my question, I so allot of memory hungry graphics work and the raw processing power is an important factor for me. I am aware of the benefits of multi-processor systems.

 

[Sam191]

I currently have P4 2.5mhz chip and it seems that most of the chips around today have similar clock speeds to this.

Well, today most chips have 2.4 - 3.0 "Ghz". Which is very far from Mhz...

And the old Intel chip clocks do not match the numbers today, if I remember correctly a P4 3.0 Ghz is not the same as a C2D 3.0

It is closer to an old AMD Athlon 3000+ which clocks at 1.8Ghz

 

[runswindows95]

I went from a 3Ghz P4 single core to a lowly 2.2Ghz E2200. Talk about night a day. For instance, 80 mins of music from mp3 to wav

P4 - 4 minutes
e2200 - 1 minute

The way to roughly look at it is like this:

1Ghz Core2Duo = 1.5Ghz AMD Athlon = 2Ghz Pentium 4

 

[aevm]

Take a look here, and maybe change the type of benchmark. Remember to click "View all products" to see more processors.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...1318,1219,1317,1316,1218,1314,1315,1310,1311

That shows a Pentium 620 running at 2.8 GHz taking 607 seconds, where a Q6600 at 2.4 GHz does the job in 154 seconds. So, lower clocks, but 4 cores and a better architecture, and your time goes down 4 times. It won't always be this spectacular, but it will be in multithreaded programs or if you can run multiple things in parallel.


One more thing, hard disks have also improved enormously in recent years, You might get a huge speed improvement there too, if you get something like Seagate 7200.11 500GB or WD 640GB.

 

[jeb1517]

1Ghz Core2Duo = 2Ghz Pentium 4

That doesn't seem accurate at all. Applying this to your own example, a 1.5GHz C2D should take 4 minutes to convert that music. But, your 2.2GHz did it in 1 minute.

I think C2D is way more than 2x faster clock for clock than a P4. Closer to 4x I would say.

 

[aevm]

That doesn't seem accurate at all. Applying this to your own example, a 1.5GHz C2D should take 4 minutes to convert that music. But, your 2.2GHz did it in 1 minute.

I think C2D is way more than 2x faster clock for clock than a P4. Closer to 4x I would say.

Adjust for number of cores. P4 = 4 minutes, 2 cores of E2200 = 1 minute, so 1 core of E2200 would take 2 minutes, logically. That is, one core of the E2200 is twice as fast as the P4.

 

[runswindows95]

That is also why I said roughly. It's a rough estimate of performance.

 

[philipchild]

>>Well, today most chips have 2.4 - 3.0 "Ghz". Which is very far from Mhz...

oops sorry! silly mistake, I meant 2.5ghz, not mhz.

Thanks for your replies, very helpful. Should I worry about the speed of the FSB at much? Or the type (speed?) of memory? Sorry but I am really out of touch which modern hardware (hens my slipping back into mhz!)

 

[aevm]

You don't sound like an overclocker in search of record clocks, so don't worry about the FSB. I'm guessing that your best CPU choice would be Q6600 (or Q9450, if you gave the extra cash), with 2 or even 4 sticks of 2GB each, DDR2-800.

I'm basing this especially on the fact that you kept the previous CPU so long. If you intend to keep this one for a long time too you better make it a quad.


Are you interested in games at all?

 

[philipchild]

>> You don't sound like an overclocker in search of record clocks

correct! I did overclock my 2.5Ghz chip a little, it's actually 2.3 running at 2.5 if I rememebr rightly. But it's not something I am perticularly fussed about, since I don't want to risk burning out the chip.

The CPUs you reccomend look good, and I would benifit from the extra cores since I use multithreaded apps a fair bit.
I do play games now and then, are games starting to be written to be multithreaded?

The other thing is that I am thinking of getting a laptop to replace my desktop, and I know historically many laptops have had Centrino CPUs which used to be a bit rubbish. Are the mobile proccessors like the T8300 any good or are they heavily crippled like the the old Centrinos used to be?

I have another question though - why are the chips called Core2 duo? they seem to be naming the chip twice. why not core2? or Core duo? Also why is the Quad called Core2 Quad?

Thanks again

 

[pasoleatis]

Hello,

Core 2 is the name of the technology.

Core 2 Duo means a two cores proc.
Core 2 Quad a four cores procesor.

In some protable devices they use Core 2 also with ohnly one core. The previous generation was cold Core. Anf beore that was Pentium 4.

I was usingf a P4 at 3.2 Ghz and than I got a dual core E6600 (at 2.4 Ghz). Using only one core the E6600 was faster at least 2 times than than the P4. This is because the Core 2 processors are more effective than the P4. If your programs can use more thn one core than the gain is huge, not to talk about the decrease in noise. The Core 2 processors run nmuch more cooler than the P4.

PL

 

[aevm]

About the games - some are smarter than others. For now Microsoft's Flight Simulator X is the only game that really benefits from 4 cores, but there are a few others where cores 3 and 4 are used (Supreme Commander, for example). In general though, most games use one or two cores at most.

 

[Scotteq]

Hello,
I am about to purchase a new computer as I haven't bought a new one in 7 years. What I am wondering is, ignoring dual core/ duel proc cpus, have the core speeds of cpus really improved much in the last 7 years? I currently have P4 2.5mhz chip and it seems that most of the chips around today have similar clock speeds to this. I realize that cache sizes have increased which should boost performance, but vaguely what sort of single threaded performance increase could I expect to get by replacing my old P4 system with a decent high end cpu based system?
Sorry to be so general but I am just trying to get an idea of the change in technology since I last researched it.

Thanks,

Philip

Oh, just to add some context to my question, I so allot of memory hungry graphics work and the raw processing power is an important factor for me. I am aware of the benefits of multi-processor systems.

Philip - In plain English, what changed is that makers ran into very real limits centered around clock speeds, the voltages needed to attain them, the heat produced by said voltages, and the increasing miniaturization of the circuits themselves being less and less tolerant to higher voltages and to higher heat. The smaller and smaller traces are much more suseptible to "leakage" and heat's effect on same should be obvious.

The focus is now more about how much work can be done per clock. Raw speeds appear to have settled around 3GHz and down. Some of the more aggressive proccy's being a bit faster than 3, but for the most part, averaging slower than that. Instead, makers are working on how to cram more and more data and instructions through at the same time. Caching is just one technique.

So going from your Pentium 4 to a Q*** or Phenom is a HUGE leap, even though the clock speed is about the same.