P4 to Core 2

[Talal Itani]

My PC has a Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz. One of the newer Intel Processors is a
Core 2 Duo, also at 2.4 GHz. I understand that Core 2 is a dual core
processor. Yet computationally speaking, system responsiveness, is the Core
2 faster than the Pentium 4? Much faster?



(surely I can dig through benchmarks, but I thought I ask in the newsgroups)

 

[Alex Mizrahi]

(message (Hello 'Talal)
(you :wrote n '(Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:34:48 GMT))
(

TI> My PC has a Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz. One of the newer Intel Processors is
TI> a Core 2 Duo, also at 2.4 GHz. I understand that Core 2 is a dual core
TI> processor. Yet computationally speaking, system responsiveness, is the
TI> Core 2 faster than the Pentium 4? Much faster?

core2 has better 'instruction per cycle' parameter for most tasks, it can be
better in this parameter as much as 2 times, so core 2 duo 2.4 GHz can work
as fast as 4.8 GHz Pentium 4 -- even for single core!
since it uses two cores, you can get even better speedups -- 4x times faster
that single core p4, or even more..

this is because pentium4 uses some weird NetBurst architecture with very
long pipeline (never models have 31 instruction pipeline). as long as it's
doing some predictable loop, it works fine -- for example, it works fine in
cryptography, some video processing, it might be almost on par with core2.
but on some workloads branching it not predictable, pipeline gots broken,
and no surprise it gots some slowdown.

for some Java computational tasks i've got speedup of about 4 times when
moved from 3.0 GHz Pentium4 (Prescott) to 2.1 GHz Core2 -- and this app used
only one core! it's not typical situation though, possibly Java did
something that p4 doesn't like at all .

)
(With-best-regards '(Alex Mizrahi) :aka 'killer_storm)
"I am everything you want and I am everything you need")

 

[darklight]

My PC has a Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz. One of the newer Intel Processors is a
Core 2 Duo, also at 2.4 GHz. I understand that Core 2 is a dual core
processor. Yet computationally speaking, system responsiveness, is the
Core 2 faster than the Pentium 4? Much faster?



(surely I can dig through benchmarks, but I thought I ask in the
newsgroups)

go here and this might answer you question
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

 

[Mike Walsh]

Each core of a Core 2 Duo is about 50% faster at the same clock speed than a Pentium 4, so if your applications used both cores it would be about 3 times as fast.

 

[GT]

My PC has a Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz. One of the newer Intel Processors is a
Core 2 Duo, also at 2.4 GHz. I understand that Core 2 is a dual core
processor. Yet computationally speaking, system responsiveness, is the
Core 2 faster than the Pentium 4? Much faster?

The system will be generally more responsive, but if it is hard disk access
that you are waiting for (disk heavy applications), then the fastest
processor in the world won't speed anything up!

As I just discovered with benchmarking my upgrade from Athlon 2400
(equivalent to P4 2.4), to Core 2 e6400, it depends entirely on what you are
doing! Typically, for single core applications it will be faster, but
perhaps not as much as you would expect, difference is that you can be doing
something else at the same time. For applications that can make use of both
cores, it will be noticably faster. See the TomsHardware link already posted
for league tables, but be sure to look at all the tests to see the
difference between single core and dual core results (I don't have time and
can't remember what tests are there, but some will only use 1 core, such as
games).

 

[CBFalconer]

Mike Walsh wrote: (*** top-posting and overlong lines fixed ***)

Each core of a Core 2 Duo is about 50% faster at the same clock
speed than a Pentium 4, so if your applications used both cores
it would be about 3 times as fast.

Please limit your line lengths to 72 chars. 67 is better.

Please do not top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed
with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all
irrelevant material. See the following links:

--
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
<http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html>
<http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/> (taming google)
<http://members.fortunecity.com/nnqweb/> (newusers)

 

[kony]

My PC has a Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz. One of the newer Intel Processors is a
Core 2 Duo, also at 2.4 GHz. I understand that Core 2 is a dual core
processor. Yet computationally speaking, system responsiveness, is the Core
2 faster than the Pentium 4? Much faster?



(surely I can dig through benchmarks, but I thought I ask in the newsgroups)

Then don't be rude, seek the benckmarks because it's
obviously going to depend on task and you weren't even
ambitious enough to mention any tasks.

You are choosing to senselessly waste people's time (which
also cheats other posters out of that time to have their
problems addressed). You are capable of using a search
engine to find information and you will have to do that
either way to get a reasonably large enough knowledge base
to make a good, contextually applicable decision.

 

[kony]

Mike Walsh wrote: (*** top-posting and overlong lines fixed ***)

Please limit your line lengths to 72 chars. 67 is better.

Yes, I second that.