What makes a cpu good?

[R3DOPS]

I never understood what made a CPU good or great. As in how much this or that it has compared to the other. When im shopping for a cpu am i looking for how much GhZ it has? how expensive it is? or how much FPS i can make on some games? 

The thing is how can i Identify a good cpu. What specs shod i look for. I want to be able to know this instead on relying on a Website to say that its good and to trust the ratings. Because at the moment that what im doing

[Aytex]

The architecture? 

 

Whats your budget on a cpu

[spartaman64]

you need to consider a combination of those factors

[R3DOPS]

Just now, Aytex said:

The architecture? 

 

Whats your budget on a cpu

I just want to understand what makes a cpu good. No budget just want to learn 

[Swndlr]

Technically speaking, IPC and core count (and it doesnt necessarily mean the more the better) are what make a modern CPU "good" and most quad core CPU's from the last few years on the Intel side are good and very popular for their price. Most people get those if theyre gaming.

[TheKDub]

Core count, architecture, clock speed, and all sorts of other shit.

 

For gaming, definitely go with Intel, I'd suggest an i5, i7, or xeon. (i5 4690K, i5 6600K, i7 4790K and i7 6700K are all amazing options)

[i_build_nanosuits]

7 minutes ago, R3DOPS said:

I just want to understand what makes a cpu good. No budget just want to learn 

single-threaded and multi-threaded performance.

ideally you want both as good as possible...CPU architecture is what determine performance.

[crystal6tak]

We as consumer just have to care about the performance of CPU. Commonly split into two parts, single-core performance, and multi-core performance. Both of these are normally measured with benchmarks such as cinebench.

 

Single-core performance as the word suggests, is how well each individual core can perform. 

 

Multi-core performance, also as the word suggests, is how well the entire CPU perform when all cores are utilized properly.

 

You as a consumer will then have to evaluate what you want. This generally comes down to what you will be doing with the computer. What software you'll be using most often. In an ideal world, all software should utilize any number of cores properly (Termed CPU scaling), however this is unfortunately not the case. Many software only properly uses 1-2 threads (Ex: Minecraft, Photoshop? I dunno). Many software would be the opposite, performing well with increased core count instead of faster cores.

 

Obviously if you want the best of both worlds and not worry about anything, grab a CPU that's great in both, which today, would be an overclocked 5960X. However since we don't all swim in cash, we pick what will benefit us the most. Example: i3-6100 (Two very powerful cores) vs FX 8320 (8 very weak cores).

 

Hope this helps!

[i_build_nanosuits]

3 minutes ago, crystal6tak said:

However since we don't all swim in cash, we pick what will benefit us the most. Example: i3-6100 (Two very powerful cores) vs FX 8320 (8 very weak cores).

...

or even better: something priced well that has reasonable performance across the board such as an i5-4460/4590/4690K/6400/6500/6600K or i7-4790K/6700K for example

[crystal6tak]

4 minutes ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

...

or even better: something priced well that has reasonable performance across the board such as an i5-4460/4590/4690K/6400/6500/6600K or i7-4790K/6700K for example

Yes, and I basically explained why those chips have reasonable performance across the board 

[TechGod]

I believe you want to know the actual reasons? What cache latency is, what even IS cache, what are FPU units, ALUs, different ways to design a CPU(e.g. CMT or SMT) and what frequency even means as well?? Not just the basic single core/multicore stuff?

[i_build_nanosuits]

9 hours ago, TechGod said:

I believe you want to know the actual reasons? What cache latency is, what even IS cache, what are FPU units, ALUs, different ways to design a CPU(e.g. CMT or SMT) and what frequency even means as well?? Not just the basic single core/multicore stuff?

in which case i would recommend spending all day reading wikipedia.

[stconquest]

9 hours ago, R3DOPS said:

I never understood what made a CPU good or great. As in how much this or that it has compared to the other. When im shopping for a cpu am i looking for how much GhZ it has? how expensive it is? or how much FPS i can make on some games? 

The thing is how can i Identify a good cpu. What specs shod i look for. I want to be able to know this instead on relying on a Website to say that its good and to trust the ratings. Because at the moment that what im doing

All you need to know is that Intel leads the architecture race right now.  Out of the thousands of builds I have seen here, only one or two warranted the multi-threaded advantage of an FX 8XXX CPU.  The one I remember best was a 100% chess simulator.  The i5 was close, but more expensive.

 

Start at an i5 6500 if you have a decent budget and move up as you find you have enough money.  If you must have Hyper Threading (i7/Xeon) the cheapest way to start is the Haswell E3-1231 V3 (with a H97 motherboard).

[Coaxialgamer]

11 hours ago, R3DOPS said:

I never understood what made a CPU good or great. As in how much this or that it has compared to the other. When im shopping for a cpu am i looking for how much GhZ it has? how expensive it is? or how much FPS i can make on some games? 

The thing is how can i Identify a good cpu. What specs shod i look for. I want to be able to know this instead on relying on a Website to say that its good and to trust the ratings. Because at the moment that what im doing

It depends on a lot of factors. 

 

Firstly,  the cpu architecture itself ( linked to IPC) .   How efficient is it?  Does it scale well accross multiple cores? 

How well does it overclock in general? 

 An example of a bad architecture would be netburst,  found in the pentium 4. 

When the p4 launched,  it struggled to outperform the p3,  while using more power and being clocked higher.  Netburst also produced a lot of heat and was very inefficient.  In fact,  it got smoked by its lowet clocked competitor,  the athlon 64.

 

An example of a good architecture would be sandy bridge ( no love for dothan though,  that was great).  It produced a reasonable amount of heat,  performed very well for its time,  could clock high,  and generally was efficient at its work. 

 

Truth be told,  there are a LOT  of factors to see if a cpu is good or bad,  but if it performs well while not being a space heater and doesn't require an external generator to power,  its fine. 

[TechGod]

5 hours ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

in which case i would recommend spending all day reading wikipedia.

Not that website. It DOES have errors. 

[typographie]

CPUs are more complicated than what single figure can accurately tell you, so I think marketers are kinda at a loss as to how to advertise these things to the general public. To actually know how various products compare across architectures, you need to keep tabs on what's going on in the tech industry and read CPU benchmarks from reputable tech sites, preferably ones using programs you actually intend to use yourself.

 

For example,

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation