question on processor

so if you ahve a 1.60 dual core then does that mean its really like a 2.12 ghz processor?

 

no........

 

lol thx for answering my n00b question i was just confused cause for some reason my amd shows up as a 3.70 ghz in intel clock ratings on that system requirements lab so i didnt know what the deal was.... caues its really only like a 2.21 ghz

 

That's an interesting question. Does computing power increase linearly or by some other factor? Like is a 800 mhz computer twice as fast as a 400 mhz computer? If it is a linear increase, then using a dual core processor in a program that supports multiple threads or while running more than one program I don't see why you wouldn't match the speed of a computer with twice the clock speed, as it seems like the two cores would be able to process the same number of instructions per unit time.

 

theoretically it performs like a 3.2g (two 1.6) processor. Essentially a single program would have to fully utilise both cores to achieve that speed. Since that most often does not happen, and in fact most programs still utilize one core (or one "and then some), rarly do people claim such numbers. Most of the time, the sense of increased speed comes from still being able to navigate windows, surfe the web, run other minor programs while you have one program taking up all of one core (where in a single core system, windows would be at a stand still until the program finished).

Also speed isn't everything. A 1.6ghz duo does perform like a P4 3.2ghz in normal bench test thanks to better optimization and a larger l2 cache.

 

hm... intresting nevre thought of it that way.... but that would be cool to run a game and utilize all of that speed...

 

Most users never max out their processor's potential anyway though. Today's CPUs are very powerful.

Moving this over to hardware forum...

 

wait... you mean to tell me after all this time that 1.6 + 1.6 = 2.12...

I always thought you would carry the one... not just bring it right on down with the 2...

anyways, the reason it does that is because you have a rather fast Athlon proc that Intel is trying to compare to its old 5xx and 6xx processors... a 2.2-2.4 GHz A64 will run about as fast as a 3.4-3.6GHz P4...

 

Yup, they're comparing it to the hopelessly obsolete Pentium 4 architecture. In other words, your CPU (one of the core, probably) is about as good as a 3.7GHz P4.