Question about minimum and recommended PC specs for games

I'm (hopefully) getting a new computer soon, but the processor that's in it, an intel core 2 duo E6400, is listed at 2.13 GHz. Games like SupCom list the recommended processor speed at 3.0 GHz, and the minimum is 1.8 GHz. Is the processor I'm getting weak? Or is there something I'm not understanding about these numbers? The price on processors that are 3.0 GHz is insane, lots of them are 1/3 the price of the ENTIRE computer. And as I understand it this is just the requirements for the DX9 version. 8O

Ignore this cocky twat. He's just bitter because Scotland lost in the rugby.

Dont worry, the E6400, whilst only being a 2.13ghz processor is actually Dual Core, meaning that it has two processing cores inside, the upshot of which means that it can get a lot more done than a single core pentium 4. Raw speed, whilst important, is not everything in todays games. Games like Supreme commander are actually coded for quad core processors (though you dont need one to play it really, overkill I feel), so for example, if you had a quad core processor running at say 2.13ghz, you would get far better performance than a single core processor (ieentium 4) running at 3ghz.

Lol.

I think people are too easy to criticize, forums are for asking questions, if you dont want to give the guy an answer dont, you dont have to write insults. I bet Strangestranger has plenty of things about him that I could criticize, his clear lack of social skills to begin with.

Noob he's posted 3278 times. Not 4000. You're soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo stupid

For some reason this line cracked me up

It's not quite so much to do with the fact that the C2D is a dual-core processor... Most games don't make much use at all of the second core, gaining at best a 10-15% advantage. There are a few exceptions, though.

The REAL advantage is that the C2D has an extremely large L2 cache with very little latency, as well as being vastly more optimized; it doesn't use the crappy "NetBurst" architecture that powered the Pentium 4 line. NB increased instruction pipeline length like an assembly line, though as a result, it was horribly inaccurate. (processor cycles, unlike cars, aren't identical) This meant it had to take several clock cycle's worth of work to accomplish a single task.

In the end, it works out to each core of a Core 2 Duo processor being approximately twice as potent as a Pentium 4 of the same speed; in other words, that 2.13GHz C2D is like having a 4.26GHz Pentium 4, only it's ALSO a dual-core, so make that a 4.26GHZ Pentium D dual-core processor.

And yeah, some people should respond a bit nicer. After all, people post here with questions BECAUSE they're researching. Don't dis someone for being a newb, as that simply makes YOU a noob. (newb is not the same as noob) And someone can always come along and humble you when you least expect it.