Curse

Eragon Selene · Mar 20, 2010, 04:43 AM // 04:43

I have been toying around with building a laptop, not physicaly building it but custom ordering it and have a few questions about some of the hardware on the market these days.

The 1st is the processor:

The new rave is the i3, i5 and i7. What makes an i7 better then a Duo Core?

i7 with turbo is 2.8mhz and 6MB cache, a T9600 Duo Core has the same specs with FSB speed of 1066 mhz

Do you want a processor with higher Cache? Some i5/7's have 3
, 4 or 6 cache. How big is this in the processor?

Second question:

Is it worth to buy 1333mhz memory over 1066 mhz memory for the extra money? Will it make that big of a difference? Both are DDR3 but the 133mhz is +40.00 all else being equal.

Sorry if i sound like a total noob, I am kinda whan it comes to keeping upto date with whats on the market. I dont replace my computers alot. Prefer to get a good one and keep it for a long time.

Lord Sojar · Mar 20, 2010, 05:27 AM // 05:27

Without understanding processor architecture fully, it is hard to explain why a Corei3/i5/i7 is superior to a Core2 Duo/Quad. In a nutshell, think of the CoreiX family to be a more efficient, sleek machine compared to the Core2 family. They are far more efficient in every single way, including power management, memory management, and processing data; speed isn't everything.

The issue with the Core2 and older processors is that they relied on a Northbridge chip to be a middle man. This middleman was slow.

Think of it this way. You have a genius with an IQ of 170 (the processor) and a genius with an IQ of 160 (the RAM), but they must communicate through a person with an IQ of only 90. What do you think happens? It's possible, yeh, but communication is greatly slowed down, and that results in what we call a bottleneck.

Now, the CoreiX family has an IQ of 200, DDR3 memory has an IQ of 200, and there is no middle man anymore. That means the two geniuses can communicate between each other perfectly, with no slow down, and get their work done a lot faster.

Cache is essentially RAM that the CPU stores instruction sets and other vital data, but it is located on the processor itself. That means it is very close. Again, to use an analogy, think of cache as being the pantry, and RAM as being the grocery store down the block, and your harddrive as being the grocery store across a couple of states. You'd rather have the stuff you need in the pantry, but the pantry isn't obviously large enough to store everything, so you have to run to the store down the street when you need other things you can't fit in your pantry. You go to the store a few states over if all hell breaks loose, and there is a food shortage (you run out of RAM)..

Make sense? Cache is decided when the engineers design the CPU, so... you don't have control over that really. If a CPU doesn't have enough cache, its performance suffers for it. However, Intel have balanced out how much cache each type of processor needs, and put in the amount they find to be the best performance per $ spent. Cache is expensive to put on a CPU, so less they can use without affecting the performance drastically of the CPU, the better. More cache is better, but it will end up costing you a ton of money if they add more and more to it. They find a balance, and the balance is what you see. If you see a cache difference between the same model CPU (Example: A Corei7 500 I believe has less cache then a 600 series) that is because the 500 isn't made to perform at the same level. If you have a choice between the same model, and one has more cache, you should choose the model with more cache. However, if the processors are a different model (i.e. Corei7 VS a Corei5), then you can't use that comparison as effectively.

For your purposes, you won't notice the difference in RAM speed. So go with the cheaper one in this case.

Elder III · Mar 20, 2010, 10:51 AM // 10:51

Rahjah = Quote For Truth (QFT)

an i7 will spank any of the older dual cores.... it;s like racing a Nissan Sentra with 200,000 miles on it vs a 2010 Ford Mustang --- the later one wins easily.

Jumping Is Uselss · Mar 20, 2010, 02:27 PM // 14:27

I love the analogy Rahja. Explains alot without making me googling ever strange word I see.

Quaker · Mar 20, 2010, 02:38 PM // 14:38

Much the same as above. The iX series of processors are better at "processing" than the earlier Core 2 series. There may not be a huge difference between them, but the newer iX's will outperform the older cpus.
Clock speed for cpus has essentially hit a wall, which is why you still see them running around 2-3Ghz. But the amount of work (processing) they do per clock cycle has increased.

When it comes to cache RAM, more is always better (within a chip "family), but as with anything else (like RAM speed) there is a point of diminishing returns. Also, comparing the cache size of one family of cpus (e.g. Core 2) to another family (e.g. Core i5) is like comparing the clock speeds - that is, one processor may need more cache to reach the performance level of a better chip with less cache.

You won't see any real world difference by using the faster RAM.