I need help with the basics of cpus

[We4Kingz]

I'm pretty bad with computers and I was wondering if there was a correlation between the cores and clock rate. If I have a clock rate of 1.5 Ghz and 4 cores will it truthfully be 1.5Ghz * 4cores( 6Ghz ) or is the 1.5Ghz spread through the cores.

I was wondering if my 3Ghz 1 core was better or not. My current Cpu is an AMD A4-500(1.5Ghz, 4core) or a pentium 4(3Ghz, 1 core).

 

Thanks For putting up with my B.S. and stupidity (and my comic sans!)                                          

[Guest]

no comic sans pls.

 

atleast you follow your own posts.

[vanished]

The font! It burns!

[Clear17Mud]

I'm pretty bad with computers and I was wondering if there was a correlation between the cores and clock rate. If I have a clock rate of 1.5 Ghz and 4 cores will it truthfully be 1.5Ghz * 4cores( 6Ghz ) or is the 1.5Ghz spread through the cores.

I was wondering if my 3Ghz 1 core was better or not. My current Cpu is an AMD A4-500(1.5Ghz, 4core) or a pentium 4(3Ghz, 1 core).

 

Thanks For putting up with my B.S. and stupidity (and my comic sans!)                                          

eww comic sans, but you can't do cores times clock speed because computers dont work like that, and you cant compare clock speed against different types of cpus. The A4-5000 is better then the pentium 4 though...

[Oshino Shinobu]

Ahhh, it hurts my eyes!

 

Typically, the clock speed is for each core. So a 4 core CPU running at 3GHz is running at 3GHz on each core (doesn't make it a 12GHz CPU). Clock speeds can be different for each core though, in various situations. 

 

Clock speed is not everything, though. Just because something has a higher clock speed does not mean it will be able to process things faster, even if they have the same amount of cores. At that point, things like architecture and IPC come into play. 

[i_build_nanosuits]

I'm pretty bad with computers and I was wondering if there was a correlation between the cores and clock rate. If I have a clock rate of 1.5 Ghz and 4 cores will it truthfully be 1.5Ghz * 4cores( 6Ghz ) or is the 1.5Ghz spread through the cores.

I was wondering if my 3Ghz 1 core was better or not. My current Cpu is an AMD A4-500(1.5Ghz, 4core) or a pentium 4(3Ghz, 1 core).

 

Thanks For putting up with my B.S. and stupidity (and my comic sans!)                                          

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-A4-5000-APU-vs-Intel-Pentium-4-300GHz/m5321vsm440

[Syntaxvgm]

I think what you'll want to look into is threads (and multithreaded workloads, what is and isn't) as well as instructions per clock (IPC) to understand what you are asking here. 

[N64CUBE]

You don't want to start off here making a bad impression. Stop trying to be a special little snowflake and use 14 point arial like the rest of us on here.

[Wander Away]

My eyes.....

 

Anyhow, in addition to what shinobu said, it also depends on the kinds of applications you're using. For example, a typical video rendering software (say something from adobe *cough*) would utilize a lot of "threads", which you can think of as a cpu core chewing through the thread for now. One core can only chew up one (or two, if its hyper threaded) thread at a time. In this case, it would be beneficial to have a cpu with more cores (say a xeon or an extreme edition cpu). 

 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, games in general tend to use less threads (mostly utilizing 2~4 cores), with a few exceptions (tomb raider for one), in which case it might be beneficial to use a cpu with less, but more powerful cores (say an i5 or i7). 

[comicsansms]

The hate for Comic Sans MS is real. What did I do?

 

But anyway, both the CPU's are very nasty and I wouldn't recommended them. *Most* Pentium 4's have Hyperthreading, so lets assume it is 4.5GHz.

 

I'd go the P4, it is a desktop CPU and you can put a modern GPU into it (Depending on the motherboard)

[The Official Czex]

I think what you'll want to look into is threads (and multithreaded workloads, what is and isn't) as well as instructions per clock (IPC) to understand what you are asking here. 

 

Oh, dear God, my eyes! Not you too?

[The Official Czex]

The hate for Comic Sans MS is real. What did I do?

 

But anyway, both the CPU's are very nasty and I wouldn't recommended them. *Most* Pentium 4's have Hyperthreading, so lets assume it is 4.5GHz.

 

I'd go the P4, it is a desktop CPU and you can put a modern GPU into it (Depending on the motherboard)

 

No one likes you.

[comicsansms]

No one likes you.

I allready knew that.

I got suspended from school because someone punched me because he didn't like me. (I did nothing)

[Syntaxvgm]

Oh, dear God, my eyes! Not you too?

 

 

No one likes you.

No one likes you.

[SeanAngelo]

I'm pretty bad with computers and I was wondering if there was a correlation between the cores and clock rate. If I have a clock rate of 1.5 Ghz and 4 cores will it truthfully be 1.5Ghz * 4cores( 6Ghz ) or is the 1.5Ghz spread through the cores.

I was wondering if my 3Ghz 1 core was better or not. My current Cpu is an AMD A4-500(1.5Ghz, 4core) or a pentium 4(3Ghz, 1 core).

 

Thanks For putting up with my B.S. and stupidity (and my comic sans!)                                          

no its 1.5ghz for all cores. you dont times it by the amount of cores.

[FAQBytes]

I'm pretty bad with computers and I was wondering if there was a correlation between the cores and clock rate. If I have a clock rate of 1.5 Ghz and 4 cores will it truthfully be 1.5Ghz * 4cores( 6Ghz ) or is the 1.5Ghz spread through the cores.

I was wondering if my 3Ghz 1 core was better or not. My current Cpu is an AMD A4-500(1.5Ghz, 4core) or a pentium 4(3Ghz, 1 core).

 

Thanks For putting up with my B.S. and stupidity (and my comic sans!)                                          

Alright, I'm gonna actually stay on topic... soooo....

 

You can think of each core as it's own CPU, just under the same die. 

So, with that said, I'll try to keep this as non-confusing as possible.

 

For most applications, they will be able to spread the work across 4 cores at 1.5 GHz. This effectively gives 6 GHz of work with this type of workload (Theoretically. Although this suffers from scaling issues. Diminishing marginal returns I guess you could say.)

 

However, some applications are very dependent on 1 thread. One example is certain simulations, as you are reliant on the results of the previous computation in order to compute the next result. In this case, you will pretty much have 1.5 GHz effective clock rate, but you will have the other cores open to do other work.

 

It depends on what you are wanting to do with this. If you can overclock the A4-500 to 2GHz, that will be by far superior, although I am leaning towards that regardless.

 

I can get far more in-depth if you want. I could also link you to resources where you can learn more about it.

[FAQBytes]

no its 1.5ghz for all cores. you dont times it by the amount of cores.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. It depends on the workload. 

 

For multi-threaded workloads, you can multiply the number of cores by the clock speed to give the effective clock. 1 quad-core 1.5 GHz will be able to do the same amount of work as a 6 GHz CPU in a perfectly multi-threaded workload. 

 

Like with my Xeon, it is an 8-core with a 3.1 GHz turbo speed when all are active. This effectively allows me to do the same as a CPU with a clock speed of 24.8 GHz in a perfectly multi-threaded workload. (Ignoring everything to do with increased instructions per clock cycle when progressing in generations.)