Why is the 3.3 Ghz on AMD's CPU same as that of Intel's 3.3 Ghz processor?

[ArkTheYO]

Hey PPL,

 I have a question , "consider" an AMD cpu with 3.3 ghz. frequency and an Intel cpu with same 3.3 ghz. frequency? Why arent they the same? Please give valid reasons! 

 

Thanks A LOT!

[Samfisher]

Cycles are just how many times instructions can be done in a second.  A 3.3GHz CPU means they can perform 3.3 million cycles per sec.  But it doesn't quantify how much you can do each cycle.  Intel's CPU architecture right now can do more per cycle than AMD's CPUs.

[CtrlAltELITE]

Its to do with 2 main factors.

 

1. Instruction set

2. Manufacturing process.

 

So with the first and most prominant factor the instruction set; The frequency is obviously how many times the processor can cycle in a second. However within these cycles different processors have a different set of commands that they can execute. So while both processors can cycle 3.3billion times every second one can be doing far more stuff in its cycle.

To cite a simplified example, lets say we are trying to do a basic multiplication of 4x3

Your old instruction set might process it like this

|1x3|+|1x3|+|1x3|+|1x3|=12

wheras a newer more advanced instruction set may be able to calculate it like this

|4x3|=12

using a quarter of the cycles thus being 4 times as powerful at the same clock speed for this usage scenario. This is an extremely simple way of looking at how PCs work at a hardware level but I think it explains the gist of it.

 

So with the 2nd factor the manufacturing process. This is less to do with raw performance and more to do with heat and power management.

The latest intel chips have transistors which are 14nm. AMD is still using a 32nm arcitecture.

This larger arcitecture not only requires larger dies but also increases the amount of energy which is wasted during the calculation thus creating more heat.

 

There is a bit more too it too with some of the advanced technologies being used such as hyperthreading (1 physical core being shared by 2 digital cores), 3D tri fin transistor gates and some other tech.

 

[DarkRuskov]

No not a all, furthermore 3.3 Ghz on one AMD processor isn't the same performance as another 3.3 Ghz AMD processor (same goes for Intel)

[Godlygamer23]

9 minutes ago, Samfisher said:

Cycles are just how many times instructions can be done in a second.  A 3.3GHz CPU means they can perform 3.3 million cycles per sec.  But it doesn't quantify how much you can do each cycle.  Intel's CPU architecture right now can do more per cycle than AMD's CPUs.

Billion. Not million. Giga means billion.

 

It's not how many instructions are being completed per second. Cycles are how many operations they're completing, whatever that operation is. Each operation contains x amount of instructions being executed.

[Nena Trinity]

Architecture! (goes for all CPUs that does not have same architecture!)

[manikyath]

look at it like car engines.

 

they can all go a specific RPM, and doing so they burn fuel to make torque to make the car go forward.

 

now, a minivan engine will behave very differently compared to for example a supercar engine. even with both of them doing the same thing (fuel => torque) they will take different amounts of fuel, and output different amounts of torque.

--

thats basicly what's happening here, an intel skylake is a sports car, an AMD is your trusty minivan. both run at 3.3GHz, but the sports car has a ton of engineering behind it, has all the latest tech to provide as much "torque" as possible at that speed, while the minivan is a bit older, maybe the engineers didnt have the budget to squeeze the most out of it, so it will perform very differently. in the end they both turn fuel into torque, but they do so at varying levels of efficiency and with different resulting torque amounts.

[Godlygamer23]

Just now, manikyath said:

look at it like car engines.

 

they can all go a specific RPM, and doing so they burn fuel to make torque to make the car go forward.

And in this respect, RPMs mean nothing. My trusty Honda Civic at 6500RPMs will produce 128HP, while a Mustang at say 3000RPMs will produce substantially more power due to the way the engine is built. RPMs are basically engine cycles.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Godlygamer23 said:

And in this respect, RPMs mean nothing. My trusty Honda Civic at 6500RPMs will produce 128HP, while a Mustang at say 3000RPMs will produce substantially more power due to the way the engine is built. RPMs are basically engine cycles.

just like GHz *really* doesnt mean anything either.

 

my 2GHz athlon 64 runs circles around my 4GHz pentium 4...

[Godlygamer23]

Just now, manikyath said:

just like GHz *really* doesnt mean anything either.

 

my 2GHz athlon 64 runs circles around my 4GHz pentium 4...

Indeed. Perfect example why frequency is a meaningless measurement of performance.

[mikat]

19 minutes ago, Samfisher said:

Cycles are just how many times instructions can be done in a second.  A 3.3GHz CPU means they can perform 3.3 million cycles per sec.  But it doesn't quantify how much you can do each cycle.  Intel's CPU architecture right now can do more per cycle than AMD's CPUs.

*Billion, 

kilo = 10^3

mega = 10^6

giga = 10^9

tera = 10^12

peta = 10^15

[Samfisher]

1 minute ago, mikat said:

*Billion, 

kilo = 10^3

mega = 10^6

giga = 10^9

tera = 10^12

peta = 10^15

I'm still living in the Megahertz days clearly

[manikyath]

Just now, Godlygamer23 said:

Indeed. Perfect example why frequency is a meaningless measurement of performance.

i actually think we are headed to a future where "GHz" will go back down, but single core performance will actually stay the same or go up.

[CtrlAltELITE]

28 minutes ago, manikyath said:

look at it like car engines.

 

they can all go a specific RPM, and doing so they burn fuel to make torque to make the car go forward.

 

now, a minivan engine will behave very differently compared to for example a supercar engine. even with both of them doing the same thing (fuel => torque) they will take different amounts of fuel, and output different amounts of torque.

--

thats basicly what's happening here, an intel skylake is a sports car, an AMD is your trusty minivan. both run at 3.3GHz, but the sports car has a ton of engineering behind it, has all the latest tech to provide as much "torque" as possible at that speed, while the minivan is a bit older, maybe the engineers didnt have the budget to squeeze the most out of it, so it will perform very differently. in the end they both turn fuel into torque, but they do so at varying levels of efficiency and with different resulting torque amounts.

 

27 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

And in this respect, RPMs mean nothing. My trusty Honda Civic at 6500RPMs will produce 128HP, while a Mustang at say 3000RPMs will produce substantially more power due to the way the engine is built. RPMs are basically engine cycles.

 

Yeah as a mechanical engineer who designs engine parts for a living... this hurt my brain but I suppose makes sense as an analogy... kinda.  

[Guest]

IPC 

[Godlygamer23]

1 minute ago, CtrlAltELITE said:

Yeah as a mechanical engineer who designs engine parts for a living... this hurt my brain but I suppose makes sense as an analogy... kinda.  

An engine cycle is just the crankshaft completing a rotation, but the engine cycle doesn't really tell you how much power the engine is producing, nor is it telling you how the cycle is actually being completed.

 

In the same respect with a computer chip, a cycle is just an operation being completed. It doesn't tell you how the operation is being done, nor does it tell you how much work(or "power") is being produced.

 

Maybe I just made it worse by trying to explain it further.

[CtrlAltELITE]

19 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

An engine cycle is just the crankshaft completing a rotation, but the engine cycle doesn't really tell you how much power the engine is producing, nor is it telling you how the cycle is actually being completed.

 

In the same respect with a computer chip, a cycle is just an operation being completed. It doesn't tell you how the operation is being done, nor does it tell you how much work(or "power") is being produced.

 

Maybe I just made it worse by trying to explain it further.

 

Yup. I mean in simplified form it is essentially correct. Engine power (KW) is calculated by multiplying your torque (Nm) by the rotational speed of the crank (rad/s) and applying that your KW could be the raw compute power of the CPU, torque being the instruction set and rotational speed (NOT RPM rad/s=(2πRPM)/(60)) being freq. To be honest I think it was me overthinking it that confused me, nevermind .

 

Hell I prefered my explaination which also included basicly how instruction sets worked!

 

 

[ArkTheYO]

@CtrlAltELITE @Godlygamer23 So basically here the intel (according to the question i set) will perform better than the AMD as it performs " more instructions per cycle " due to its modern architecture even though they perform the same cycle per second.

Right? Please correct me if am wrong!

Thanks a lot ! You all have been really really healpful! Thanks A Lot again but please do reply back  !

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Spoiler

 

[Godlygamer23]

Just now, ArkTheYO said:

@CtrlAltELITE @Godlygamer23 So basically here the intel (according to the question i set) will perform better than the AMD as it performs " more instructions per cycle " due to its modern architecture even though they perform the same cycle per second.

Right? Please correct me if am wrong!

Thanks a lot ! You all have been really really healpful! Thanks A Lot again but please do reply back  !

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Per core, yes. Intel's architectures are superior to AMD's. It gets a little more complicated once you start adding in cores and threads. What CPUs are you actually referring to in this thread?

[CtrlAltELITE]

Just now, ArkTheYO said:

@CtrlAltELITE @Godlygamer23 So basically here the intel (according to the question i set) will perform better than the AMD as it performs " more instructions per cycle " due to its modern architecture even though they perform the same cycle per second.

Right? Please correct me if am wrong!

Thanks a lot ! You all have been really really healpful! Thanks A Lot again but please do reply back  !

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KINDA!

 

Intel performs better per cycle than AMD due to its more modern INSTRUCTION SET. (Its doing more stuff in 1 cycle)

Intel performs better well also being cooler & more power efficient because of its ARCHITECTURE.

 

[ArkTheYO]

@Godlygamer23 I am referring to Quad core processors actually! Would you please take up some more time of yours to explain it to me better like in the perspective of both single and dual or quad core processors! Thanks in advance!

@CtrlAltELITE Thanks a lot again!

@Alexokan @Samfisher @manikyath Thanks a lot !

 

[Godlygamer23]

Just now, ArkTheYO said:

@Godlygamer23 I am referring to Quad core processors actually! Would you please take up some more time of yours to explain it to me better like in the perspective of both single and dual or quad core processors! Thanks in advance

When you're comparing core for core, Intel's CPUs are superior in performance. However, if you compare say an FX 8350 to a Core i5 4670, you may find that the 8350 actually achieves performance that is up there with a 4770 or 4790, particular in things like 7-Zip for example. That being said, in video games, Intel's CPUs tend to take the cake because most games tend to benefit more from per-core performance, rather than a bunch of threads though that is kinda changing.

[CtrlAltELITE]

8 minutes ago, ArkTheYO said:

@Godlygamer23 I am referring to Quad core processors actually! Would you please take up some more time of yours to explain it to me better like in the perspective of both single and dual or quad core processors! Thanks in advance!

@CtrlAltELITE Thanks a lot again!

@Alexokan @Samfisher @manikyath Thanks a lot !

 

Thats pretty simple.

 

So in within a CPU is a processing CORE. As the name implies in multi core systems there are multiple calculation cores squeezed on to the one circuit board (or die). So in real world applications a quad core processor can be doing 4 different calculations at once, A dual can do 2, and a single is limited to 1 calculation per cycle.

 

You also get hyperthreaded cpus. This is where lets say an i3 has 2 cores on the processors. But uses fancy wizardry to fool software into thinking it has 4. This allows the CPU to priorotise its calculations better.

 

[Godlygamer23]

Just now, CtrlAltELITE said:

So in within a CPU is a processing CORE. As the name implies in multi core systems there are multiple logical cores squeezed on to the one circuit board (or die). So in real world applications a quad core processor can be doing 4 different calculations at once, A dual can do 2, and a single is limited to 1 calculation per cycle.

 

You also get mutli THREADED cpus. This is where lets say an i3 has 2 cores on the processors. But uses fancy wizardry to fool software into thinking it has 4. This allows the CPU to priorotise its calculations better.

Though having multiple cores automatically creates additional logical threads that can be used as long as the software and operating system are aware of the extra cores. The fancy stuff you're talking about is SMT, but on Intel's CPUs, their form is specifically called Hyper-threading which creates additional logical cores on the physical CPU cores the software and operating systems can address.

[CtrlAltELITE]

1 minute ago, Godlygamer23 said:

Though having multiple cores automatically creates additional logical threads that can be used as long as the software and operating system are aware of the extra cores. The fancy stuff you're talking about is SMT, but on Intel's CPUs, their form is specifically called Hyper-threading which creates additional logical cores on the physical CPU cores the software and operating systems can address.

Aye I phrased that badly.