Boggled over processors.

[sarym13]

okay so there is just SO MANY different processors. What are the difference of them i am wondering?

For instance

you got the I5 2300. 2400. 2500

Amd phenon ii x4 955. 965, 970, 975, 980

is there really much of a difference from a jump to say, i5 2400 to i5 2500? or x4 970 to x4 975? what is different about all these so i can be able to look at them and compare them myself instead of getting a answer from each 1 by 1 =p

[vesseblah]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2 for comparing the processors head to head.

Simple answer: the difference is around 5% between each number up when it comes to games, so 965 is 5% more powerful than 955 and so on. Sometimes the numbering is screwy and there are various low power models to fool people and mess up the symmetry, but the link above should sort those out.

Important thing with Intel for example is that even though there's no difference between 2500 and 2500K out of the box, the K model can be overclocked further but the non-K model can not. On AMD side the closest equivalent would be "BE" after name, or Black Edition. All AMD processors are partially unlocked, but the BE is fully unlocked for overclocking.

Why people are recommending 2500K for gamers is the ability to overclock. Without overclock 2400 would be probably best price/performance processor of the new lineup, but the OC can push 2500K 30% further instead of the usual 5% step between models.

[Xuvial]

Each of them have slightly faster stock clock speeds (and sometimes bigger/varying caches) than the previous one. E.g. an i5 2500 will be slightly faster than a 2400, which will be slightly faster than a 2300. Their prices vary accordingly, the faster one costing more.
Same story with AMD processors.

The difference is small and hardly noticeable, but if you keep going by that rule you'll end up picking the slowest one :P
Note that with Intel does have an i5 2500K, the "K" meaning an unlocked multiplier aimed at overclocking. Although almost everyone here will recommend you to buy a 2500k

When it comes to choosing a processor it really comes down to your budget, you buy the best you can afford. Though I will say that Intel is currently dominating the market in both performance and price, we're still waiting for AMD to catch up architecture-wise.

[nwo]

All the Phenom II x4s you mentioned are black editions, which means they come with an unlocked multiplier which makes it a lot easier to overclock them.

On the Intel side, you mentioned the i5s which are much faster than the phenoms since they are two generations ahead of them but the ones you mentioned come with locked multipliers which means they would be more difficult to overclock and it would require more knowledge and effort on your part in order to get a stable overclock. Intel unlocked CPUs have a "K" in them after the model number, such as the i5 2500K.

The difference between the AMD Phenoms you listed is pretty much only the clock speed, and same goes for Intel CPUs you mentioned. But if you are wondering how much of a difference clock speed actually makes, then I would recommend you look up some benchmarks/reviews online.

Here are two links to get you started:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/t...i3-2100-tested
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2

[sarym13]

Thanks guys really helped me out, I'm really enjoying that benchmark comparison as well! Definitely going to use that the day i decide to make my purchases

[Nightbliss]

While Phenom II CPU's can be considered old tech, they are still capable, cheap and very good money for performance CPU's.
Infact, I tend to usually recommend them when people are on budgets.

I'd much rather have a Phenom II X4 955 coupled with a GTX560 than an i5 2400 with a GTX460.
While the difference on performance on several tasks can be abysmal (not really), the difference on games can most of the times be neglected, specially if you're a techy guy and know a thing or two about CPU's and hardware, generally.

6 months ago, I bought a new CPU, Motherboard, Ram, GPU and PSU, the ones on my signature, comming out about 500€ but the same config now, costs about 350/400€.

All in all, its all gonna depend on the budget and the use that the computer is destined to.
Those benchmarks are artificial/synthetic, unless you're actually going to video encode/edit and all that yadayada.

[vesseblah]

I'd much rather have a Phenom II X4 955 coupled with a GTX560 than an i5 2400 with a GTX460.
While the difference on performance on several tasks can be abysmal (not really), the difference on games can most of the times be neglected,

Those benchmarks are artificial/synthetic, unless you're actually going to video encode/edit and all that yadayada.

Speaking of WoW, there's massive difference in favor of i5-2400 + GTX460, and it's not imaginary either...



(i5-2400 would be about 5% below 2500/2600 in framerate, those numbers are at stock clock speeds)

[Nightbliss]

As I said, benchmarks are synthetic, those specially.
I would like to see someone running a 25Man raid on Ultra (can exclude Shadows) at 1080p and getting those frame rates.
Also, the article doesn't even mention what those frames are, and I'm gonna throw a guess and say those are max frame rates, so guess what, means jack all.
Who cares about 150 FPS when it still dips below 30?

I can get 120FPS on my old Athlon X2 4800 and GF8600GT if I'm looking up on the sky...

Anyway, I've been in the hardware scene for long enough to know what to think and what to say.

I'm not arguing the Phenom II is better than SB or even the old i's but they are definitely, a bang for buck CPU if you're tight on the budget.
And yes, I'll repeat it again, on a real life situation, excluding the Video Editing, Encoding and whatever where the speed per clock performance really does matter, the difference can be neglected between these CPU's if you have a decent enough GPU.

Oh and for the record, I can also link AMD favouring games where you see old tech Phenom II crap beating Sandy Bridge bombs, go figure.

[nwo]

I'm not arguing the Phenom II is better than SB or even the old i's but they are definitely, a bang for buck CPU if you're tight on the budget.

They are indeed decent bang for the buck CPUs, but they are not the best bang for the buck CPUs when it comes to gaming. A slightly more expensive i5 2400 would blow any phenom II out of the water in all aspects. On the other hand, an i3 2100 can be obtained for less than a (comparable) phenom II and the i3 2100 would give you decently higher fps in most games.

[Nightbliss]

The i3 isn't a native Quad and requires HT to get the other 2 "non physical" cores so no, I would get any Phenom II Quad over that i3 crap.
i5's are decent CPU's but here, the lowest worth getting i5, the i5 2400 is almost 100€ more expensive than the Phenom II 955BE for instance, and I'm an OC lover so I would never get anything other than the 2500k which is even more expensive.

For 180€ here you can get the II X6 1090T which I'd take over any of the i5's but the 2500/2500k.

You always pay for what you get, if there wasn't AMD arround, Intel would monopolize the CPU market, flooding it with incredibly high prices, same goes for GPU's, AMD is keeping Nvidia on track.

[vesseblah]

As I said, benchmarks are synthetic, those specially.

I can get 120FPS on my old Athlon X2 4800 and GF8600GT if I'm looking up on the sky...

Seems like you missed the point, or don't understand the concept of relative difference between the products. When i5-2500 does 50% higher framerate on the test than any AMD product, it might actually mean that it is faster than AMD. Much faster.

Anyway, I've been in the hardware scene for long enough to know what to think and what to say.

Do you believe if I claim to be the president of the United States? Right, now that that crap is out of the way...

Oh and for the record, I can also link AMD favouring games where you see old tech Phenom II crap beating Sandy Bridge bombs, go figure.

Please do... Meanwhile take a peek at the page where the picture in my post linked to -> http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/t...2100-tested/20

---------- Post added 2011-05-10 at 05:13 PM ----------

The i3 isn't a native Quad and requires HT to get the other 2 "non physical" cores so no, I would get any Phenom II Quad over that i3 crap.

Again look at the chart above where the i3 blows out all AMD alternatives, both 4 and 6 cores...

For 180€ here you can get the II X6 1090T which I'd take over any of the i5's but the 2500/2500k.

Looks like I was right. You do know about computers just as much as I'm the president...
x6 is worse in games than x4 because of clockspeed difference, and wasted money for any and all gaming use.

[Nightbliss]

Seems like you missed the point, or don't understand the concept of relative difference between the products. When i5-2500 does 50% higher framerate on the test than any AMD product, it might actually mean that it is faster than AMD. Much faster.



Do you believe if I claim to be the president of the United States? Right, now that that crap is out of the way...



Please do... Meanwhile take a peek at the page where the picture in my post linked to -> http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/t...2100-tested/20

You're the one missing on it, everyone knows that, ever since Core2's that Intel's speed per clock has been way higher than AMD's.
No one is saying whatever CPU you wan't to talk about isn't faster than whatever CPU you are talking about, or can't you read?

The difference however is negligible, specially when you look at the circumstances where the tests took place, or didn't you read your own article?

[nwo]

Even if you pay 50% more for the i5 2500k, you get what you pay for... In most (CPU demanding) games, you will get 30-50% better fps than a 955BE, and that's without any overclock taken into consideration. We all know that the the i5 is capable of reaching a much higher overclock than any Phenom II, so the performance difference goes up by even a wider margin.

The i3 2100 is by no means a crappy CPU, it is a budget CPU which is an excellent choice for a budget gaming PC. In gaming, it outperforms any AMD CPU currently on the market. However, I would also personally never go for a dual core since I like to multi-task and I would much rather sacrifice some gaming performance (10-20%) to gain more multi-tasking power.