CPU explained plz lads

[shawdreamer]

See I have absolutely little to no experience with all these dual core jobs that are flying about and generally I used to avoid them in favour of more familiar single core systems.

 

here's my problem:-

 

The missus has blown up her pc, a P4 system that was specifically bought to supplement her growing addiction too Sims3 and facebook

 

so now I have to get another so as she stops enviously side glancing at my lappy.

 

the problem is I have no experience with multi core cpu's, I usually tend to stick to single core systems as I atleast understand them bloody things.

 

My question is therefore simple to ask but to me slightly mindboggling to answer:

 

her current pc was a Intel Pentium 4 - 2.8Ghz single core cpu, with a Nvidia (somethingorother) Gpu card it ran her Sims3 pretty well and had no issues running the net and the usuals.

 

Now I aint paying out for a newun for something as simple as playing sims3 and trawling facebook (which I shityounot is the extent of her pc skills) so that means a used system off eGay or something which is fine by me.

 

However, most the decent ones are running dual core cpu's with stated speeds much lower than the now blown one (which I understand doesnt entirely mean their less powerful)

 

and the question Im meandering around is :-

 

If the original cpu = P4 single Core 2.8Ghz that fulfilled sims3 requirements

 

what is the dual core with equivalent speed I need for the same requirements??

[smithyandco]

Dual Core 1.6Ghz is about as low as it goes really as far as desktops which would far exceed the capabilities of a 2.8GHz P4

(I have 2x 1.6Ghz dual core systems here... little HP units using SKT479 (laptop) type CPUs... they can handle a damn site more than any single core P4)

 

So with that in mind... anything that says dual core followed by the words Intel or AMD will suit if you really want dual core to replace your current system.

 

 

If it's just CPU problems... I've got a 2.8 P4 here I'll post for £0.00 if you want it... Although you'll either have to fit it yourself, get a mate to do it or drive over here to get me to fit it.

And then there's sockets... Yours could be a SKT478 or a SKT775 (my spare is a SKT775).

[shawdreamer]

Dual Core 1.6Ghz is about as low as it goes really as far as desktops which would far exceed the capabilities of a 2.8GHz P4

(I have 2x 1.6Ghz dual core systems here... little HP units using SKT479 (laptop) type CPUs... they can handle a damn site more than any single core P4)

 

So with that in mind... anything that says dual core followed by the words Intel or AMD will suit if you really want dual core to replace your current system.

 

 

If it's just CPU problems... I've got a 2.8 P4 here I'll post for £0.00 if you want it... Although you'll either have to fit it yourself, get a mate to do it or drive over here to get me to fit it.

And then there's sockets... Yours could be a SKT478 or a SKT775 (my spare is a SKT775).

 

 

<glazed eyed stare>

 

any dual core is better than a 2.8 then?

 

fuckit then......she's havin another p4, found a 3.6Ghz HT, that'll do her.

 

There no way Im going to any more trouble if all she's gonna do is play feckin sims3 and sit there on sheepbook.

 

As for the 2.8 you have, well that'd do if I could be sure its the cpu thats died, as the pc wont even boot into bios now there's no way of even telling if its the MB, CPU or even just the PSU and as I cant be arsed trying to find out, Ill just buy a complete tower instead, its to boring to be bothered with anything else.

 

cheers anyway tho phil

[smithyandco]

<glazed eyed stare>

 

any dual core is better than a 2.8 then?

 

Spot on! Even an Intel Atom (Netbook/MiniITX desktop) would provide better results than a 2.8 P4!

fuckit then......she's havin another p4, found a 3.6Ghz HT, that'll do her.

 

There no way Im going to any more trouble if all she's gonna do is play feckin sims3 and sit there on sheepbook.

That 3.6 will do the job you want also!

 

HT stands for HyperThreading, It's a single core processor that can pretend to be a dual core. In theory this means some applications should run better on a HT single core CPU than a non-HT single core CPU.

(It's a little more complicated than that... But I tried to explain it in simpleton terms...)

As for the 2.8 you have, well that'd do if I could be sure its the cpu thats died, as the pc wont even boot into bios now there's no way of even telling if its the MB, CPU or even just the PSU and as I cant be arsed trying to find out, Ill just buy a complete tower instead, its to boring to be bothered with anything else.

 

cheers anyway tho phil

The offer is there if you want to play around with the old system... maybe learn something!

[PeeWee]

Maybe the old one isn't dead?

It's amazing how many people tell me their pc has "blown up" when it hasn't at all.

I understand now that you can't get to the bios, could you before you posted here?

Symptoms?

Does it power up, fans, lights, screen?

Have you tried removing the onboard battery for 5 mins then popping it back in (yes this really works sometimes)?

[shawdreamer]

Maybe the old one isn't dead?

It's amazing how many people tell me their pc has "blown up" when it hasn't at all.

I understand now that you can't get to the bios, could you before you posted here? Its been suffering random issues for a while, irregular start up issues, support issues with things that have worked for years (mouse, trackpad etc)

Symptoms? see above, in addition to those the system would often refuse to start up entirely but could often be coaxed back into life after running some checks in safe mode (when you could get it to start in safe mode that is)

Does it power up, fans, lights, screen? partial power up, MB powers up seemingly normally at first (internal board statis light comes on) before it fires off seemingly random beeps and external indicator light flashes and instantly shuts back down. the screen randomly tries to fire up but never get as far as imaging, the fans come on full blast all across the system (Gpu, Cpu etc) for a short blast before shutting down again.

Have you tried removing the onboard battery for 5 mins then popping it back in (yes this really works sometimes)? Aye, it was a suggestion covered in a HP help forum

 

I already compared the beep frequency and indicator flashes against the ones supplied by HP and given that the amount and frequency seem to vary on every start up attempt it could be anything from MB failure, Bio's Failure, Hardware incompatibility Failure, PSU failure, Heat restriction Warning........basically it didn't help atall

 

tbh Pete its hardly worth the trouble and effort to repair the thing if Im honest, a similar spec can be bought for 60note nowadays, Ive stripped out the usables and Ill use them to upgrade the P4 replacement system that Ive ordered now (2gig DDR2 ram, 250Gig HDD, Lightscribe DVDrw etc).

 

sometimes shooting the old horse that cant get up is the kindest thing to do

[PeeWee]

Fair enough lol.

[sidrick]

Sounds like a shagged motherboard.

 

I've got a dual core atom board I need to get round to flogging from my NES PC that never got used like I thought it would.

[eetaylog]

Sounds like a shagged motherboard.

 

Yessiree

 

I've got a dual core atom board I need to get round to flogging from my NES PC that never got used like I thought it would.

 

Can i have the lolly sticks?

[stuey650]

Dual Core 1.6Ghz is about as low as it goes really as far as desktops which would far exceed the capabilities of a 2.8GHz P4

(I have 2x 1.6Ghz dual core systems here... little HP units using SKT479 (laptop) type CPUs... they can handle a damn site more than any single core P4)

 

I disagree with this, when systems moved from single to dual cores a few years back we did some testing at my work and found the faster single core performed quicker than the new dual cores at that time which were slower cores. Its was something similar to what your saying as we were moving from P4's to the first of the intel dual cores whatever speed they were. We had a chap thats job is basically running processor intensive reports all day long. With his old PC he would run the reports and the PC would basically hang for 20mins whilst the reports run, with the dual core the reports took longer to run, but the difference was the PC didn't grind to a halt, he could still use the rest of the PC, basically on the other core that wasn't maxed out doing the calcs.

 

So back to sim's/facebook. Sim's ain't gonna utilise 2 cores, it will just run on one so will be slower as the clock speed on said core is slower than the P4. I'm not sure about IE but lets face it facebook isn't processor hungry anyway. I think my point is that in difference scenario's single or dual core can be better than the other.

Edited March 25, 2011 by stuey650

[Stu]

stuey650- A few years back most software wasn't multi-threaded. Now most CPU's are 2 or more cores, software will be multi-threaded and make full use of the cores, which will typically be faster than a single core equivalent.

[stuey650]

yip, and thats exactly the conclusion we came to aswell, but given this particular example, Sims and Facebook, aka internet explorer its not going to help, Sim's 3 won't be multi threaded and I don't think IE is? I've never seen it running over more than one core unless you have more than 1 window open when they will use different cores but thats not the same as multi threading thats justing running an exe twice on different cores.

[bluliz]

Dual Core 1.6Ghz is about as low as it goes really as far as desktops which would far exceed the capabilities of a 2.8GHz P4

(I have 2x 1.6Ghz dual core systems here... little HP units using SKT479 (laptop) type CPUs... they can handle a damn site more than any single core P4)

 

I disagree with this, when systems moved from single to dual cores a few years back we did some testing at my work and found the faster single core performed quicker than the new dual cores at that time which were slower cores. Its was something similar to what your saying as we were moving from P4's to the first of the intel dual cores whatever speed they were. We had a chap thats job is basically running processor intensive reports all day long. With his old PC he would run the reports and the PC would basically hang for 20mins whilst the reports run, with the dual core the reports took longer to run, but the difference was the PC didn't grind to a halt, he could still use the rest of the PC, basically on the other core that wasn't maxed out doing the calcs.

 

Excel 2003?

[markbsi]

differnt cache sizes and how said cache used are also a big part of how the cpu performs. also the core 2 chips (duo and quads) were based on the older pentium 3 design not the p4, thats why the original i7 and later chips are much faster as they include hyper threading where as the core 2's didn't.

 

for facebook and the sims any chip newer than your P4 will easily cope.