Tech Discussion on CPU limitations...

Discussion on CPU limitations...

Processor speed (ghz)
Cache
Processor FSB
Ram speed
Amount of Ram

The bottleneck happens in the Processor FSB and Ram speed correct? So if two boards have the same amount of memory, cache, fsb, & memory speed, processor speed WOULD NOT matter?

Enlighten me also about multi-core FSB. If its a 2core with 800 fsb, is it single 800 FSB or 800x2? Also, dual channel memory basically gives the same amount to 2 cores (2 sticks of 1gb for example gives 1gb for each core?)

I was having a talk with a friend and he said something about a computation done with dual cores regarding bandwidth etc.

tomshardware.com read up there. I could write a whole article but i'm too lazy. Long answer short, processor speed does not matter as much as before because of multi-level caching, faster FSB, and of course faster ram will play a role too. However, it all depends on what you want to do. Also your question is irrelevant seeing that different processors have different setups. if you want a product comparison, give more specific info on product or at least the series of the processor.

Well, my friend was looking at the dell website and his argument was that since the RAM is limited to ddr2-800, it will be useless to get a processor with a FSB greater than 800.

But I am just reading wiki right now and apparently the number 800 is not the I/O-FSB of that memory. The ddr2-800 only has a bus of 400mhz. I need to read more but need to rest for now.

and the 800fsb of a pentium 4

is actually only 200mhz...

but in the end they both carry the same amount of bandwidth...

aye... you could overclock the CPU, but you need a hefty 20%+ overclock to notice a marked diferrence...

what I do I buy the lowest cpu with the same cache sizes as the most expensive one and OC it to that level...

architecture changes gives you more performance than Ghz lately.
and multicores nowadays are here to stay... Win7 and Snow Leopard are the first OS
to be fully aware of multi cores (win7 in the case of properly recognizing fake cores of the HT... and properly handling them all... Vista was good, but too much fumbling the processes between the cores)

Well, he is thinking between Duo E7500 (3MB L2, 2.93GHz, 1066FSB) and Core™ 2 Quad Q8200 (4MB L2, 2.33GHz, 1333FSB). The latter one is 40$ more. Notice that the quad has a slower speed vs the duo.

Unfortunately he is stuck with the ddr2-800 memory. So will 40$ be worth it given the fact that both of their memory will be limited? The most he will be using the comp is for blue-ray player/writer, and a little photo and video editing.

Quad! all you mentioned is better in quad since it's easily spreadable betweens cores

Photoshop flies on my Q6600... even when it's not OCed to 3Ghz
videos, gpu help a lot in this, but you need a strong cpu to decypher whatever else is left over from the gpu optimized path, CSS key decoding, audio, etc.
I say more ram is better than absolute ram speed, I got 4GB ("only" as some may say nowadays, but I've had this ram quantity since 2-so years ago lol) but
only in REALLY heavy photoshopping I've noticed some HDD trashing.

The E7500 is faster. I would go for that. Esepcially if the mother board can take faster processors in the future. unless you have specific software that can utilize all four cores, its not going to matter much. also if you're not using windows 7 for your OS, its pretty useless trying to go quadcore if you are on a budget. or you could also consider AMD.

An AMD Phenom quad core is very affordable. That's the route I went.

and Athlon2 Quaddies are even cheaper... but no L3 cache will hurt performance...

No it won't for the price you pay, its pretty darn good. just get a good video card.

I still need a good video card now that you remind me...