Desktop Processor Buyer's Guide

Knowing a CPUs Performance When Buying a Desktop PC


The first specification listed for all computer systems on the market tends to be the processor that is the heart of the computer. Usually it will say the brand, model & speed of the processor in the spec sheet, but the promotion knowledge may only list its speed rating. This can make it hard to select how lovely a machine is. After all, processor walking at a specific speed may not run & a different model from the same manufacturer. That is why I have pieced together this list of categories to let you know how functional each processor is.

Outdated Processors

Processors that fall in to this section are usually no longer in production by the manufacturers & are usually sold in either budget systems or older refurbished systems. Machines with these processors will usually take longer to run application & possibly might not even run numerous applications on the market today. It is best to try & avoid systems with these processors unless you require making use of a computer for the basic functions such as word processing & general web browsing.

• · AMD Athlon 64 (Non-Dual Core/X2 Models)
• · AMD Athlon 64 X2 (Older Socket A Models/DDR Memory RAM Models)
• · AMD Athlon XP
• · AMD Athlon X2
• · AMD Phenom X3 and X4 Series
• · AMD Sempron LE
• · Intel Core 2 Duo
• · Intel Core 2 Quad
• · Intel Celeron
• · Intel Celeron Dual-Core
• · Intel Pentium 4
• · Intel Pentium D
• · Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2000 and E3000 Series

Budget Processors

These are processors that may or may not be in production anymore by the manufacturers but are cheap & functional. There are usually types of processors that will fall in to this section: older high-end processors no longer manufactured & new low finish budget processors. Discontinued high-end processors usually provide a better bang for your buck functionally. While they may have a slightly lower clock speed, their architecture of the processor tends to let them actually perform better at most computing tasks than newer budget processors.

•  AMD Athlon II X2 240 and Higher
•  AMD Athlon II X3 440 and Higher
•  AMD Athlon II X4 620 and Higher
•  AMD Phenom II X2 545 and Higher
•  AMD Phenom II X3 705 and Higher
•  AMD Phenom II X4 810
•  Intel Core i3-2100 and Higher
•  Intel Core i3-530 and Higher
•  Intel Pentium E5400 and Higher
•  Intel Pentium G6950
•  Intel Pentium G620 and Higher

Middle Processors

This is the segment of the market that is probably the best overall value for your computing dollar. While they are not the quickest processors on the market, they still perform well in all aspects of computing. They may not have the total functional lifespan of the highest finish processors, but the cost to performance ratio tends to outweigh their longevity.

• AMD Phenom II X4 945 and Higher 
• AMD Phenom II X6 1045T and Higher 
• Intel Core i5-2300 and Higher 
• Intel Core i5-650 and Higher 
• Intel Core i5-750 and Higher 
• Intel Core i7-2600 and Higher 
• Intel Core i7-860 and Higher 
• Intel Core i7-920 and Higher

Top of the Line Processors

This is the cream of the crop when it comes to processing power. In the event you absolutely must have the best thing out there for your new computer than this is what you require to look at. It will cost you though. Usually the latest processors from the manufacturer's come at a cost premium of about double that of the middle processors. While the cost is over double that of the middle processors, the performance tends to be only about 25-50% more at the best of times from their counterparts in the middle section.

• AMD Phenom II X6 1090T and 1100T Black Edition
• Intel Core i7-2600k
• Intel Core i7-975 Extreme
• Intel Core i7-980X Extreme

The All New LGA 2011 and Sandy Bridge-E for Enthusiasts

Frankly speaking, Intel wasn't raring to go to reveal lots of details about the new Sandy Bridge-E & LGA 2011. & there are several reasons behind it. Obviously, they already know everything they desired to know about these new products. They will come out soon, so at this point you may even find some benchmark results of the engineering samples available online. The second reason why Intel was so restrained is the fact that there is not that much to tell about these CPUs, because they cannot boast any unique technological innovations. Sandy Bridge-E is the same exact Sandy Bridge, & for the most part the differences are actually in the number of processor cores & the connection between them.

In fact, the next slide shows clearly that there won't be anything new about the Sandy Bridge-E processors & LGA 2011 platforms, which Intel codenamed Waimea Bay.

Desktop Sandy Bridge-E processors will be manufactured using well-familiar 32 nm production process & will have or 6 computational cores depending on the CPU model. Note that they will lose the graphics core, but instead they will receive a bigger L3 cache & an enhanced four-channel memory controller supporting DDR3-1333. The L3 cache in this case will be 15 MB giant. In other words, the main advantage of the upcoming LGA 2011 platform will be high performance, which must be delivered at any cost:

 Increased number of computational cores;

 Hyper-Threading know-how support;

 Turbo Boost know-how support;

 Larger L3 cache;

 Four-channel memory controller;

 High clock frequencies.

Unlike LGA 1155, the new LGA 2011 platform is aimed at experienced fans & betting fans that is why Intel pays special attention to the ability to make use of high-performance graphics sub-systems made of several graphics accelerators. LGA 2011 systems have as lots of as 36 PCI Express 2.0 lanes. And incidentally, Intel said that they will also support PCI Express 3.0, although at this point they haven't even passed their certification yet. Later on, however, when actual AMD & Nvidia graphics cards featuring this interface come out, they will all work at full speed, without losing any of the graphics bus speed.