John F. Kerry

ok , i think ive got it figured out,

so basically the reason these new intels are better than the ones from say 2004 (like the pentium 4 which i have now) is because they have a smaller architecture and because they have multiple cores right?

its confusing because my current computer has 2.8 ghz pentium 4 with 2 gb of ram... when u go to buy a lot of new computers , many of them have gigahertz ratings lower than my one from 8 years ago... which is confusing.

so the intel core i3 i5 and i7 , they say like i3 2.75ghz i5 2.9 ghz ... thats like the same speed as the one i have.... but from reading it seems like these core processors have like 2 or 4 or even 8 or 12 of the same processor all in one- so its like at least 2 of my pentium 4s, or even more...

is that right?


does it work exponentially like that?

also- from what im gathering it seems u can get a desktop computer with much higher specs for cheaper than a laptop - is that correct or are there some laptops that have the same performances (like a2.2 ghz laptop with an i3 core or whatever versus a 3.1 ghz with a i5 core are like the same price.... is the destop obviously much faster or can u not compare apples to apples the laptop and desktop processors? )


basically if someone could explain to me like what the real difference is between a pentium 4 like i have now, and these current ones the i core , the amd newer ones forgot what they are called, and the intel dual core shit.... are they just a little faster than my pentium 4 ? or like night and day?


basically my main question is if i get a 2.5ghz i core , will it still be like much much faster like at least 5-10x faster than my old pentium 4 2.8ghz? it seems to be counterintuitive, but i think thats right, right?


also - people who play 3d games and shit- what size graphics cards do u find sufficient with no lag these days? i have a 128 mb thats a joke now.... a lot of new ones its a choice bt 512 and 1024 - will 512 be more than enough or is it much more sensible to get the higher one?


i figured that with moores law my 2.8ghz pentium 4 that i got in 2003 would now be like u could get a 10.8 ghz or whatever.... like 5x the speed... but the current ones are like about the same as mine was- but i think they all have multiple cores , so is it twice or multiple times faster or what?

and if you really know your shit- whats the best system i can get for 600 bucks and 1000 bucks ? desktop and laptop ? i could use some suggestions. the dell studio desktop looks pretty nice for 899 . any recomendations or help appreciated.

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Nasa under Obama

Xil

not an expert at tis shit but from waht i dundersatand multiple cores at same speed will ne much beter at multiptasking and higher level prgrams that implement it well

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wellfleation

The MHz lie died a long time ago, developed originally by Intel. It's all about multithreading now, and cores. Also graphic cards, depending on what you want to do.

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FIGHTPOWER

Ego Tripping

^ exactly.

The best way to view and review hardware specs now is quality vs. quantity, effeciency vs. speed. Go for a processor with as many cores as you can afford and high L2 and L3 Cache.

Oh and ditch Intel and go AMD...better bang for the buck if you get the right heatsink/cooling system. I recently built an AMD Phenom X4 965 3.4ghz / 8GB RAM / GeForce 9800GT / Win7 Ultimate 64-bit / Intel SSD and I get no lag, nowhere, even with AA at 8x.

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