Teach a rookie - CPU

Hardware Hub CPU
1

I've came to this site and forum to ask you guys what is the best I can get for my money, but further I got, I ran into some terms that I do not understand, like:

- If I'm comparing a 2.2GHz dual core processor at full load is his strenght equal to 2(cores) x 2.2 GHz or just 2.2GHz spread around 2 cores? So if you compare two processors like my 2.2GHz AMD Athlon 2x that runs my laptop right now to a 2.2GHz [Let-say-it-exists] 8 Core, and they are both solving the infinite math problem. Which one is going to preform better? Is the total strenght of the theoretical 8 Core equal to 17.6GHz?

- Is the AMD FX-8350 (that I'm planning to put into my new PC) better or worse of some cheaper i5's? Note: I'm using my PC for "light-weight" gaming and Guitar Rig guitar amplifying.

- As far as my knowledge goes: Faster HDD amps up your loading speed, better graphics card amps up your FPS. What does better/faster CPU amps up? (I know it's not the topic for CPU part of the forum) What does the more RAM amp up? As far as I know RAM has it's own clock speed, what does that amp up?

So, probably some of you are saying to them selves something like: "Oh my god, what is this kid/noob/retard doing here?!" But note: I know I'm clueless about this and I'm just asking you to change one "noob" into someone worthy of posting on this forum.

Thanks

 

2

This post on superuser does a much better job of explaining it then I'll ever be able to. It's not a simple answer and there is lots of math and processes to take into account. You can't think of it as a direct multiplication. A single 12 ghz processor would be able to process the information its given faster than say four 3 ghz cores. It would be like one strong guy riding a single bike vs 4 smaller guys riding a tandem bike. The bigger dude on the smaller bike will probably win.

Although its kind of a non issue because the whole reason why multi core processors were made in the first place was because you couldn't really make a single 12 ghz chip. It got to the point in procssor development where stacking smaller cores was cheaper and more effective than trying to push processors to higher speeds. 2 and 3 ghz processors already existed and were getting smaller so they just started stacking them on top of each other than pushing single chips harder and harder.

3

That post on superuser was really helpful, thanks.

But I'm still confused. The AMD FX-8350 is said to be an 4 GHz 8 core processor. So does that mean that he has 8 cores with 0.5GHz each or is it a processor 8 cores, 4GHz each?

Recap: I'm still a stupid fuck

4

If you have a 2.2GHz quad core processor, each core will run at a maximum speed of 2.2GHz. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have an 8.8GHz CPU though.

If a program is running that was built to be used as a single-threaded application, then no matter how many core you have, it can only use one of those cores, so using the 2.2GHz quad core as an example, only one 2.2GHz core will be available to that application.

If you are running a multi-threaded application however, the workload can be shared across all the CPU cores, but this doesn't mean that all cores will be slammed at 100%. It could be using 50% of the power of 2 cores, 30% of another core and 10% of the last core. Overall though, a multi-threaded application will run far quicker on a multi-core CPU than it would on a single core CPU, as it isn't limited to just one core at 2.2GHz, but has 4 at it's disposal.

The FX-8350 is a decent CPU, but for gaming, an i5 4670k can perform better, as Intel CPU's generally have a better performance-per-clock ratio than AMD's.

RAM speed determines how quickly the data that is stored within it can be sent to and from the CPU. For example, 1600MHz memory is generally labelled as PC3-12800 meaning it can transfer data at 12.8GBps, 1866MHz PC3-14900 can transfer data at 14.9GBps etc.

Faster CPU's can help to gain FPS in games due to the ability to load game data which is then fired to the GPU at a quicker rate, although most of the actual rendering is done on the GPU anyway. The only real way that a CPU upgrade will increase FPS in games is if the graphics card is trying to load frames from game data that the CPU hasn't been able to send to the GPU to render first due to it being busy trying to handle everything else (aka if the GPU is MUCH faster at pulling data than the CPU can push data).

That's as simply as I can put it really. It may not have been the best description in the world, I've never been good at saying exactly what I mean in depth, but I tried! Hope it helps somewhat.

P.S. A CPU's labelled speed means it runs at that on every core, so your FX-8350 @ 4GHz will run at 4GHz per core.
5

I'm really thankful for that description. It's really simple and easy to understand. Thanks again

6

Yeah I'm terrible at explaining things. There are indeed many factors that affect processor speed. One thing to keep in mind about the superuser post I link is that they seem to be considering a best case scenario where all cores are being fully utilized. Paralell is correct that a lot of applications don't even fully utilize all cores. This is a problem on the software side of things. Most programs still havent been build to properly utilize all cores. Video games are especially lagging behind on this. They're just starting to utilize 4 cores I don't think theres any game made currently that properly utilizes 6 or 8 cores.

This is also a reason why a single core at a higher sped would be faster. The multi core processors rely on software companies being able to make their programs properly multithreaded. In a perfect world all cores would be used equally and it might actually be faster than a single beefy core but its not a perfect world. Again its really a non issue anyway because multi core processors are the only way processor manufacturers are going to be doing things for a while.

7

The FX 8350 is better than the i5 in applications which will support up to 8 cores/threads, and in some situations competes with an i7. Really depends on the workload. In light workloads or in applications that will only use 4 or fewer cores, the i5 will be superior simply due to each of its cores being much faster than each of the 8350's cores. If you have no intentions to do overclocking or anything, if you wanted one of the cheaper i5s like a 4570 with a cheaper motherboard like a B85 would be a fine choice also. Though to be completely honest, if you're only doing light gaming (and I have no idea how demanding this guitar rig amplifying is, so this may be a dif story) you'd be fine with the FX 6300 or 6350, which is slightly slower than an i5 for much much less money.

Memory basically just allows more relevant data to be stored on the RAM, which is MUCH MUCH faster than a hard drive. The more RAM you have, the more data can be stored in the superfast RAM so that your computer doesn't need to read from the hard drive as often. Faster memory I can't really say, pretty much all real-world benchmarks I've seen show no significant difference from memory speed whatsoever. For gaming, 8GB is pretty much the sweet spot. With only 4GB you may run into issues with background tasks and resources being used so you may run into some frame dips, though with 16GB you'll probably never use 60% of it unless you do some heavy-ish video editing.

Faster CPU basically improves the entire system, though in many real-world situations especially for gaming, much like memory, there are CPUs that are far more than what we need. For instance there are a lot of games where an FX 8350 or an i5 4670K do not get used anywhere near 100%, and the games would run just as well on an FX 6300 or i3 processor. While having a processor that's too slow holds back other components like the GPU and prevents them from performing at their peak. So your processor can greatly affect framerates, system responsiveness, and also is very important for video editing, encoding, streaming etc.

8

For your needs. I'd say get whatever you can get cheaper. Even check local IT stores, or even a Microcentre if you got one near you.

Aim for either an i5-3570(k, if you feel the need to OC), or a 4670(again, k, if you feel the need to OC) if you can't get these cheaper than the 8350. Then no biggy, the performance is all quite similar.

 

CPU does play a part in games. Though it doesn't make too much of a difference. The gap between an 8350 and i7 in same games is >4fps. There are very few games where any processor takes a really noticeable lead (When tested on realistic settings anyway, those here who browse /g/ will know instantly what I speak of)