Buyers Guide - Choosing A Processor

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Buyers Guide - Choosing A Processor By The Custom PC .com Original Source

You might think this is the most important component that will determine your systems overall speed, Well you are right but make sure you don't spend all your money on buying the processor as the processor speed wont mean anything if you don't buy the right memory, Storage device and motherboard.

How Is A Processors Speed Measured?
Every processor has a speed rating which is measured in MHZ. 1000mhz is usually addressed as 1gig so a 3.2gig processor would be 3200mhz. Intel's processors are usually called Intel Pentium 4 3.2gig. So you know that the processor speed is 3200mhz. But be careful with AMD as they name there processors AMD Athlon 3200+ / 4500+ but 3200 and 4500 does not mean that the processor speeds are 3200mhz and 4500mhz, the mhz rating will be much less than this number and is sometimes in small print so watch out.

Do I Need A 64 Bit Processor?
Your software will only benefit from a 64 bit processor if you install an operating system which supports 64 bit. But be aware that some programs / games do not run on 64 bit operating systems.

Do I Need A Processor With Cache?
The more cache a processor has the faster it will be able to perform. Budget processors usually come with 128-512k of cache, Whilst the higher spec processors will come with 1-2mb (1024-2048k) of cache

How Many Cores Do I Need
You might of heard of something called a dual core processor, This is a single processor that has two cores inside it. Each core acts like a single processor, So a processor will act as two because it has 2 processor chips (Dual Cores) inside it.

You will benefit from a dual core processor if you run more than one program at a time. For our entry system you will not benefit from having a dual core because you are not running processor hungary programs and you are also not running many programs at once.

The dual core processors share the processing that a system needs to do which makes this processor a must for our top of the range system.

Which Processor Brand Shall I buy?
In recent years AMD have really taken over the market from Intel. The recent AMD processors have been out performing intel's pentium processor range. AMD have also been packing in gaming performance enhancements in to there processors which makes AMD the clear choice for anyone.

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Originally posted by thecustompc_com
How Is A Processors Speed Measured?
Every processor has a speed rating which is measured in MHZ. 1000mhz is usually addressed as 1gig so a 3.2gig processor would be 3200mhz. Intel's processors are usually called Intel Pentium 4 3.2gig. So you know that the processor speed is 3200mhz. But be careful with AMD as they name there processors AMD Athlon 3200+ / 4500+ but 3200 and 4500 does not mean that the processor speeds are 3200mhz and 4500mhz, the mhz rating will be much less than this number and is sometimes in small print so watch out.

you need to do more reading yourself, you're making a very common mistake. measuring the CPU performance in frequency only.

AMD uses a P-rating. a 3200+ is called a 3200+ because that's how it actually performs.
it takes a fewer amount of clock cycles for an Athlon to complete instructions than a Pentium 4.

so an Athlon 3200+ and Pentium 4 3.2GHZ will complete a given instruction in roughly the same time. sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less.