A question for all the geeks out there:)

[Myrrdin]

THe cpu is the most important part of a pc,without it the pc is like dead.

Well.... from that then if you take out the ram its also dead so that must be most important, no wait if we remove the gpu it wont start either...........hmmmm

Just so we're clear and you called us geeks so I need to clear it up. When you say cpu you don't mean the white or black box sitting under your desk or do you?

 

[JohnnyQ]

+1

Thats were the sticking point in this debate lies imo...."faster" as in what? Benchmarks? If so what kind etc.

I think it all comes down to raw processing power, like the new IBM Roadrunner supercomputer that tops 1 quadrillion calculations a second. Measured in that way all computers are placed on the same measurement scale.

Your speed will be a combination of all the components in your system, of which the cpu is the most noticeable. If the architecture stayed the same, the cpu would theoretically be able to increase the speed of the pc, every time a faster cpu was added, whereas the memory will only give a perfomance boost to a certain point, and thereafter would have no effect anymore.

 

[Myrrdin]

The Megahertz myth

The megahertz myth, or less commonly the gigahertz myth, refers to the error of using clock rate to compare the performance of different microprocessors. While clock rates are a valid way of comparing the performance of different speeds of the same model and type of processor, other factors such as pipelines and instruction sets can greatly affect the performance when considering different processors. For example, one processor may take one clock cycle to add two numbers and another clock cycle to multiply by a third number, whereas another processor may do the same calculation in one clock cycle. Comparisons between different types of processors are difficult because performance varies depending on the type of task.

More.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_Myth

 

[koffiejunkie]

Well.... from that then if you take out the ram its also dead so that must be most important, no wait if we remove the gpu it wont start either...........

It would, actually. I'm not sure how well Windows handles the absence of a display adapter, but the rest of the computer industry have been running headless computers for decades. Not just "headless" as in "doesn't have a screen" - "headless" as in doesn't have any display hardware at all - no place to plug in a screen. In fact, many of SUN's servers are still sold this way.

Your speed will be a combination of all the components in your system, of which the cpu is the most noticeable. If the architecture stayed the same, the cpu would theoretically be able to increase the speed of the pc, every time a faster cpu was added, whereas the memory will only give a perfomance boost to a certain point, and thereafter would have no effect anymore.

Again, it depends entirely on what you do. For some things you can never have enough memory. Some things are heavily disc dependant. Some things (like video encoding) uses a little memory, doesn't need much in the way of disc performance at all, but is almost entirely CPU dependant.

For the average office computer (word processing, calendar/mail, accounting package, etc), the order of importance is:

1. Memory
2. Hard disc
3. CPU
4. Graphics

In my desktop support years, I have routinely helped clients on a very tight budget put together a P-II or low-end P-III machine (refurbished desktops from Device or one of those places) with a new 7200rpm disc, 512MB memory (PC133 was cheap then). Windows XP Pro, Office 2003, Pastel or whatever they use - ran like a champ. And more often than not, when those clients eventually could afford to upgrade it to a P4 or something, they were disappointed that their desktop experience isn't much faster.

So again, it depends on what you use the computer for.

 

[HavocXphere]

Like the new IBM Roadrunner supercomputer that tops 1 quadrillion calculations a second.

And yet my PC pwns it in Crysis.

 

[sn3rd]

And yet my PC pwns it in Crysis.

Bwahaha!!!!! +1 !!

 

[kronoSX]

well the road runner is fast due to cell processors..cpu ftw.
I believe that the cpu makes the pc faster.

 

[eitai2001]

SO all components need to work in harmony to make a pc fast....After reading all the replys i am a bit confused.THe cpu is the most important part of a pc,without it the pc is like dead.So it stands to reason that a what makes a pc is the cpu hence the speed to.Without that speed you will not have a fast pc..

Take out the ram or graphics card and then try use your PC. Or try take out the northbridge chipset on your motherboard and see if your CPU works.

Our brains control our bodies, but our heart keeps our brain alive.

And in terms of CPU speed, it is important, but I am running a Q6600, and if I run at 2.4Ghz or 3.2Ghz I barely see a noticeable difference.

 

[CeeBee]

i would also like to throw something in here, concerning what is bestest, speed/performance wise :
what is a better option to put on the mobo? : a quad core CPU or 2 x dual cores?
(server speaking of course, although I suspect normal desktops not far away?)
I'm sure when dualcore CPUs came out there must've been some discussion about equiping a server board with a dualcore, or 2 x single cores.

A buddy & I were discussing the other day, how a dual processor would handle games! -- imagining playing games on a machine with 2 x quad cores...!

If I remember correctly I saw a (server) mobo some time ago that can take 4 CPUs, so imagine the gaming power of 4 x quad cores!!!
I guess the normal games of today won't be much better on this rig as it needs to be specifically written for multiple CPUs??

 

[koffiejunkie]

i would also like to throw something in here, concerning what is bestest, speed/performance wise :
what is a better option to put on the mobo? : a quad core CPU or 2 x dual cores?
(server speaking of course, although I suspect normal desktops not far away?)
I'm sure when dualcore CPUs came out there must've been some discussion about equiping a server board with a dualcore, or 2 x single cores.

Makes no difference.

A buddy & I were discussing the other day, how a dual processor would handle games! -- imagining playing games on a machine with 2 x quad cores...!

It would only benifit you if the game is coded to take advantage of 8 cores. Not too long ago games weren't multi-cpu aware at all.

If I remember correctly I saw a (server) mobo some time ago that can take 4 CPUs

That's been around for years and years.

so imagine the gaming power of 4 x quad cores!!!

Not sure if those server boards would have the correct PCI-e slots for your mofo graphics cards. Those machines are nice for running a database server on though! I'm working on a Dell R900 MySQL server (16 cores, 128GB RAM). Eat your heart out

 

[CeeBee]

I'm working on a Dell R900 MySQL server (16 cores, 128GB RAM). Eat your heart out

Mean **** bro!
I've clearly been out of info circulation recently... we currently need to upgrade an old server, so when new quote came with mobo for 2 x quad cores, I thought ... wow!
I'm sure we'll see multiple CPU for 'normal' gamer desktops and the games to utilise them soon.... at decent prices.

 

[Daniedj]

I'm sure all these things add up to make a fast PC, but the cheap option to make a pc faster is to add more RAM. Take RAM in left hand and chuck it into the case untill full. Repeat if needed with bigger chips.

 

[koffiejunkie]

Mean **** bro!
I've clearly been out of info circulation recently... we currently need to upgrade an old server, so when new quote came with mobo for 2 x quad cores, I thought ... wow!

My only gripe is that it's not an Opteron box. 16 Opteron cores will make any Intel server cry (at least for database work).