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Making Sense of CPU and GPU Model Numbers?
b4dc0d3r writes "How do you make sense of the various model numbers or naming schemes for CPUs, graphics cards, and the related chipsets? All I want is something that will run Oblivion and output full 1080 video to a TV. Last time I built my own computer I just went to Pricewatch, made a few easy choices, and everything came to my door. Do I really have to research the differences among Core i5, Core 2 Duo, Pentium 4, Pentium D, Sempron, Athlon, Phenom ...? And that's just the processor. Is there a reference somewhere? In short, how do you buy a computer these days?"
Anything moderately current will do anything you want. It doesn't really matter what you choose. So set yourself a budget and buy something that fits within that. It will probably do fine.
Even if you know nothing about computers you go look at benchmarks at anandtech and find the one with the biggest bar on the graph that you can reasonably afford.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
I usually have to spend some time on Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/ That allows me to work out what I want, then I do a price comparison to find out what I can afford. It's a nuisance, and most computers nowadays don't come with a decent graphics card, so if you're a gamer, that takes even longer to research.
Try the Ars technica system guide:
http://arstechnica.com/hardware/guides/2009/10/ars-system-guide-october-2009-edition.ars
Clear as mud. Thanks for your help!
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Ditto for CPUs: Best Gaming CPUs For The Money
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Check out http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ and http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ With a pinch of salt you can make a relevant decision based on those two, even if Googling around would make your decision even better. .
I usually find the advice from tech report's periodical System Guide to be very useful and relevant.
Their latest report came out a couple of weeks ago. They focus on a range of options at various price points and requirements.
sorry to attempt to answer your question and not shill Apple.
bah!*@%!
A Core i5 750 costs more than any current AMD desktop processor, so that makes no sense. I can get a quad-core Athlon II for half the price of an i5 750. Sure, it's slower, but it's not slow. Also, it drops straight into my old AM2 motherboard (with a quick BIOS upgrade). Try doing that with Intel.
True, but it's going to be fun if he wants to run the Natural Wildlife mod so the wolves and rats don't all have rabies, or if he wants to add wings to his character or make the levelling system not broken or something. It's not necessarily my opinion, but people do say that Bethesda release the games, and then the mod community makes them playable.
> how do you buy a computer these days?
Every 3 years, just before the warranty expires, I sell my current Mac, get half of what I paid for it (outrageous resale value!) and then I buy the updated version of that same Mac at the Apple Store. 3 years later I do that again. They're always smaller and faster and more rugged.
I know Macs have model numbers and I know they have CPU's which also have model numbers. I don't know any of those numbers.
The numbers I am concerned with all have to do with my work, which is music and art. I'm really happy to leave the I-T numbers to Apple.
Remember that this shit completely changes every few years. I used to build PCs for myself and my school as a kid (386/486), then couldn't affort to for a few years, then had to start reading PC magazines when it finally came time to afford a new PC (Pentium 2/AMD equiv). Fast-forward a few years to my next major upgrade, and I'm reading Wikipedia instead of the mags, but I'm still pig-ignorant of the latest tech until I've figured out whether AGP is still current (nope) and which of DDR2/3 will be needed, how many cores are worthwhile, etc etc etc.
Maybe it's easier for those who do hardware support or deal with servers (I mostly deal with routers/switches/firewalls), but I get completely left behind if I ignore the PC components market for more than a few months.
Actually, if you want to run Oblivion with the "must-have" mods (Better Cities, OOO or whichever leveling mod you prefer, some better texture pack), you'll still need a relatively well configured system. The game might be 4 years old, but it can still be very demanding (and IMO still looks and plays great, once mod'ed correctly)
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
Just find a reputable computer seller and order a machine that fits your budget. It'll probably run whatever you need it to run. If Oblivion is the heaviest game you're going to run, you can be done for about $500 probably.
If you don't want the same boring standard machine that everybody else has, then you'll have to do some research. I did that 2 years ago. My main resource was Silent PC Review because I was tired of my old jet-engine-soundalike. AnandTech is also a good source, as is Tweakers, if you happen to be Dutch. Lots of articles on those sites will refer to Tom's Hardware, which does benchmark graphs, but really, just get what everybody's recommending.
Two years ago, I went with:
All of this cost me about EUR 1000. Very happy with it. Dead quiet, too. Mind you, this is from 2 years ago. There's probably better, cheaper, quieter, faster stuff around now, but I'm not keeping up.
As for the dual core/quad core stuff: how many heavy CPU-using applications will you be running at the same time? Will your heaviest applications be able to make efficient use of multiple cores? If you don't know, go with dual core. One for the main app, one for everything else. No need to have to extra cores that are only idling all the time.
Radeon 4790? Where do you suggest he finds that?
I assume you mean Radeon 4890, which is at around $200 although at limited availability.
Still, I would suggest he gets the cheaper but more future-proof Radeon 5770. He might want to run DX11 in the future, or eyefinity.
Actually, if he really means Oblivion-level games only, and does not expect to start playing any newer stuff, even the 5770 is overkill and he should go for the $80 Radeon 5670 I see on NewEgg right now, or lower still...
Next on, your answer suggest that you don't consider sub-$200 processors as a valid market. Sorry to have to wake you up, but for most people (e.g. those wanting to run Oblivion and output to 1080p) an Athlon II X3 or X4 at under $100 is more than enough. In fact, the entire pc that fits OP's description should cost around $300-.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Another reason to choose AMD over Intel, Intel has some CPUs that support the new virtualization extensions and some that don't. AMD OTOH supports the virtualization extensions across the line. That and AMD quad cores are stupid cheap now. Unless you have a really pressing need for a really high end CPU get the AMD.
The Core i5-750 is only $200. If you're not willing to spend $200 on your CPU, you have no business building a PC instead of buying one.
$200 is too much for a CPU. Unless you're eager to waste money to get more power than you can possibly use, $100 gets you everything you need.
Make sure that the CPU you buy supports hardware virtualization, for running virtual machines. Every computer enthusiast should want to run virtual machines!
I think all current AMD CPUs support hardware virtualization. But Intel in their infinite market segmentation wisdom has decided to randomly disable hardware virtualization on various CPUs in their lineup, so look before you buy. The funny thing is that very few computer salesmen know for which CPUs hardware virtualization is enabled, so the only result of Intel's market segmentation is confusion and dissatisfied customers.
Perhaps. To each his own. I'm leaning towards a Core i7-860 myself, because it performs about 90% as well as the $1000 Intel procs for only $280, and I plan on only upgrading my computer every 5-6 years... that is, I'm replacing a 6 year old computer now, that's been more than adequate because I put in just an extra $100 when I bought it, and it has been a net saver of money.
FanFictionRecs.net
Wow, what nonsense!
I personally build almost all my family's and my company's PC's, from simple $300 desktops to $5000 servers and the only cases where I have bought pre-built (hence the "almost all") were towards the latter ($5k) category. I find it much more important to built a cheap pc yourself, because you control exactly where the limited budget goes and you end up with a much better pc for your intended use for the money.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
You haven't heard of http://www.ifixit.com/, eh?
I haven't built a PC in 10 years. I probably won't ever again. Too much effort; too expensive due to getting sucked in to going for higher-end components; too much effort with unreliability; too expensive to buy an OS (no, I don't want to us Linux any more either); and for games, a dedicated console is a better choice.
I'm quite happy to buy a mid-range Dell if I'm worrying about price... at least everything has been tested, and it's one place to go if something fails. If price isn't an option, or I want something that just works really well, then it's a Mac all the way thanks. I don't have the time to spend pissing around doing the research, then keeping on top of drivers, or fiddling with configuring the OS. Give me something that works out of the box thanks.
This. Also, during the 1990s computer performance increased dramatically, as in it went from 10MHz to 1000MHz. Since then things have sort of reached a level of "good enough". For instance, I kept my motherboard and processor the same from 2002-2007, simply because it was still able to run most current software just fine. The only things which really prompted an upgrade were Oblivion and a desire to play with a 64-bit OS.
And as the parent says, that was a long enough wait to have lost touch with motherboard, memory and graphics card technology.
I recently built my own computer for similar purposes. I needed a box that would download things all day and output via HDMI to my TV, but I placed an extra constraint on my system: Linux compatibility, or at least a reasonable degree of compatibility. So, I researched available parts, using price as the first method of siphoning all the dreck. I live in China, so, for example, the processor's price ranged from a few hundred yuan (about 50 bucks) to about four thousand yuan (closer to $500). I decided not to pay more than 400 yuan for my processor, and right there, I cut out about 90% of the processors I had to research. I decided from then that I wanted a 64-bit processor and I would only look at the top 3 FSB's out of those processors, and I chose Intel because my previous experiences with Linux and AMD procs was somewhat dubious. Everything else kind of fell into place after simply choosing the proc, save for the GPU, which I chose for it's Native HDMI port, high-ish (1GB) dedicated memory and driver support in Linux. So that part was even easier.
Your situation seems a lot simpler than mine though, since you only have two constraints: Oblivion (don't know what it is) and 1080 video to a TV. Basically, what you need is any computer matching the requirements for playing Oblivion (I would go a little beyond recommended specs for running it) and with a NATIVE HDMI port. If you spend time worrying about complex names for different series of nanometer sized pieces of wire hypersolderized together, you will drown in the hopelessness that is marketing and advertizing and general rhetorical BS. Find out what specs you need to do what you want, if you're using Linux then check for compatibility issues in the forums of the distro you use or plan on using, and what you need to buy should pretty much be spelled out for you in pretty simple choices. If you're using Windows, you have a lot less to worry about since you don't really have control over those sorts of things, just take whatever has an HDMI port and enough RAM and cycles per second to run your game.
I don't have this problem with recent AMD processors, but I certainly do with Intel's. With Athlons it basically comes down to Athlons in 2 and 4 core variety, upper end is Phenoms with 2, 3 or 4 cores the Black edition of those which are supposedly for better overclocking, Opterons for sever and workstation, Semprons for budget computing. there's different dies and configurations But Intels, I can't even begin to name. I guess there's Celeron Pentium and Core. All of those have vastly different configurations, but b with Core it got really confusing cause they went from core2 to I7 and then I5 and now I3. WTF, Intel? Can you make this easier, please? This is a large part of the reason I completely over look your processors.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
The Core i5-750 is only $200. If you're not willing to spend $200 on your CPU, you have no business building a PC instead of buying one.
B.S.
What the point of wasting $200 on CPU when you can get for >$100 a CPU which performs in real world >5-10% slower?? And most applications (even games) are pretty happy even with half/quarter of the performance???
I'm not per se against the Intel CPUs. Some of their CPUs are cheaper and faster than the AMD ones. But for whatever reason, at least in Europe, the MBs for Intel CPUs are on average 10-25% more expensive than those for AMD CPUs. And upgrade-ability of the AMD systems is magnitudes better: one can get cheap CPU today and upgrade it few years later.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
AMD capable motherboards tend to be a lot cheaper, that can easily save you enough money on a highly capable gaming system to replace the HD with an SSD, and that will have far more influence on game performance then the Intel chip will. In gaming, AMD performs a lot better. Always make sure to read the entire review of a CPU for the stats that are relevant to you. For instance, if you once in a blue moon use Office and never use a database on your PC, what do you care about how fast/slow your CPU is at them?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"how do you buy a computer these days?"
- Set myself a minimum requirement (run this app, boot up in this amount of time, perform so-many I/O operations per second, etc.)
- Look at the specifications available from a range of my usual suppliers. Don't bother to look elsewhere - if you can't buy it, it doesn't exist. If you have to hunt for it, it'll be rare, expensive, not as well supported and probably far too specialist for your needs.
- Narrow things down by a sensible budget.
- Compare the specifications there against each other and, by looking them up on the net if necessary, find out which one is more suitable and best value-for-money for your needs (Is an Atom faster than whatever is in the other machine? Can my game take advantage of a second core?).
Basically, look at the "recommended" spec on those games you want to play, then go on about 10-12 large websites that sell computers to the market you're in (e.g. gaming) and see what they offer. The chances of being able to build anything comparable for the same / lower price are minimal - those days have gone and you're more likely to balls things up if you don't know what processor socket or PSU you need to run things properly.
Seriously, how hard is it? Ignore ALL of the marketing... see what you can afford, see what you need, see where they match (if at all), then do your research on those 2-3 models of machine (including their major components) that are good for you instead of trying to research every component that's currently available in every model that ever existed. I've managed to sort through a hundred models of PC to get to three in a few minutes, and then I just researched those three and actually spent nearly five times as long doing that last bit of thorough research properly.
If you want to know, I do this for a living for mainstream businesses / schools and that means everything from high-end CAD-stations to netbooks. It's *still* cheaper to buy the right thing from a large retailer's website than it is to mess about trying to cobble things together, whether you're buying one or hundreds. I have no idea what "name" processor is in 90% of the desktops I've bought... I can barely remember if they were Intel or AMD. It really doesn't matter at all what the codename is, I have no idea what the latest interfaces, cache sizes, socket-sizes, memory technology etc. even are. I just look it up when I have already narrowed things down to models with those components and make a decision based on what I can easily buy, how much I want to spend and what I *need* the computer to have / do.
You don't *need* to know all that rubbish, it's all just marketing anyway. What you need to do is see what's available and then check how well it's likely to run your games (e.g. benchmarks on similar games for the individual components, whether the processor is multi-core or not and whether the game can benefit). Let the assembly guys at a large company worry about whether the sockets are compatible, whether the memory timings are right, whether the PSU is powerful enough etc. If they mess it up, it costs them money. If you mess it up because you built it yourself or deviated from their normal bundles, it costs you money.
And no, you do *not* end up paying a premium to do things this way. You save money even before the things arrive on your doorstep due to the wonders of bulk-buying (Ever wonder *why* those bundle deals are so cheap? Mass purchasing by ordinary businesses, usually, if you ignore the holiday seasons), let alone the savings in not having to worry about destroying a card or PSU because you ordered a standard bundle and a "Super Duper Turbo Hyper Fighting" graphics card and put them together yourself because you heard it gets 1fps better on some random website.
Set yourself a specification (e.g. dual-core or not, speed in GHz, whether you are worried about the power it saps, X amount of RAM, etc.). Set yourself a budget. Find out how much stuff matches those. If it's a lot, set yourself a st
It's so nice to see that snobbery is alive and well in the nerd world
There is no -1 disagree
By informing yourself. Use search engines, find reviews, read hardware sites. The more time you invest on improving your awareness, the better your system will be for the money and the better use you'll make out of it.
Perhaps the point of his question to slashdot....you know, a technical news/information site, with a technically savvy audience...is to get an answer, not to get excoriated for having the question?
You know, your point "3. Research what components will achieve the expected result."
I think his question is valid - it used to be a fairly simple task to equate processor speed with power, to come up with a reasonable expectation of performance for a task. But to everyone (except, apparently, you), it perhaps isn't intuitive that a quad core at a lower speed will or won't perform better than a duo core at a higher speed. (Answer: sometimes it will perform better, sometimes it won't. How is he supposed to know, oh swami of computer tech?)
So you could offer actual advice or click through to the next news article, instead of bitching that someone asked a very valid question.
-Styopa
Any CPU with more than 2 cores, should be able to handle most of what you want... I've been testing a dual core Atom 330 at work, and it's actually easy to forget it's not a "real" CPU (unless some FPU-intensive screensaver comes on).
For mid-to-low-end systems, GPUs are really the discriminator ... what makes a difference with running games at decent resolutions and playing back video. The model numbers are nuts, but I tend to cross-reference a few places:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ - a good comprehensive list that boils down and ranks just about every card out there into a single (artificial) benchmark number.
Wikipedia also has surprisingly good coverage of every family of chip, and what products are based off of them and tables of supported features - crucial for system building. So I use it primarily to figure out things like: which nVidia Geforce is equivalent to which Quadro FX branded model, what is the fastest memory my "Barton" core Athlon would support, what the hell is the difference between a 2.2Ghz "Williamette" vs. a 2.2Ghz "Prescott", etc.
I've also taken a liking to checking with http://www.phoronix.com/ for Linux benchmarks and support for new hardware features and drivers... such as nVidia vs. ATi vs. Intel, which distribution has better VPDAU or audio support, etc.
And definitely once in a while read up on http://anandtech.com/ and http://tomshardware.com/ if it's been a while and you need a comprehensive explanation of new tech, such as SSDs or long-term price vs. performance investment strategies... those can really help you plan ahead (Intel & nVidia's tick-tock release cycle, finding the best value, and just generally knowing which buzzwords are important and which are just marketing rubbish.
I had issues back on XP, but on Vista/7, the opposite seems to be true- NVIDIA has the buggy drivers.
As part of some Vista capable lawsuit a while back, it was found that NVIDIA drivers caused the most BSODs. Even if you scaled ATI's marketshare at the time (I forget the month, but I looked it up- the Steam Hardware survey is as reasonable of a guess as you're going to get) to make the crash percentages ceteris paribus, NVIDIA drivers still crashed on Vista 50% more.
On Windows 7, I haven't had any driver related issues...
Your comment is soooooooo 1:48 PM
Wake up and smell the coffee of 2:07 PM
But if you're looking at the long term, wouldn't it make even more sense to buy a processor at the optimal price point rather than a high-end one? In a couple of months, there'll be cheaper processors that are just as fast as the i7-860.
Huh? I don't get it. I did not mention laptops, is there some reasoning you have that puts $5k laptops within the $300 desktop $5k server space that I talked about?
In case I was not clear, no, I do not build laptops, nor would I recommend it and it is a rather OT issue.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
I would recommend looking at your requirements and then maybe buying a Mac if appropriate.
If you want to play games (which the OP does) then Windows is currently the way to go.
If you want to do programming/development (excluding for the iPhone/iPod) or if you like getting under the hood and tweaking things then Windows/Linux is the way to go.
If you want to do pro audio/video/graphics or if you want a computer that you don't need to look under the hood, then Mac is probably the way to go.
Yeah, Macs are 'dumbed down' as far as the OS goes and they're not the cheapest machines available but for some people they are perfect. A flat out recommendation to ignore them is not good advice.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Using (and developing apps for) Windows, Macs, Linux, Win Mobile, Palm, Blackberry and the iPhone, I must respectfully disagree with you on your anti-Mac recommendation. They are not without flaws, as I don't know of any complex systems such as IT as being without any flaws of some sort. However...that said...I have: an iMac (G3) still faithfully fully running OS 10.3; an eMac (G4) still faithfully fully running OS 10.4; an iMac (G5) still faithfully fully running OS 10.5; a MacBook Pro (Intel, 2007) still faithfully running OS 10.6; a 2nd MacBook Pro (Intel, 2009) still faithfully running OS 10.6. These machines cost me, at point of purchase (including Apple Care Protection Plan on the last three) under $10,000. I've invested maybe $1000 in various hardware or software upgrades for the combined lot. I have never had to reinstall the OS - ever. On the total lot of machines, which represent 12+ years of Apple Innovation, I have had a total of 15 kernel panics. On the two Mac Book Pros I run virtually, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 of various flavors. The Windows OS runs better on Apple Hardware than it does on my two latest HP Machines (business class). I also maintain a Win 2003 Enterprise server, and a separate Win 2008 Enterprise server, but I run both virtually from within Linux distros (Fedora and Ubuntu, respectively). Users can certainly have a simplified UI experience with OS X, but to say that OS X takes a "dumbed down" approach is patently false. OS X, out of the box ships with many more tools, features and uses than Windows does, at a fraction of the cost. My point is that there are those of us who know that in our experience the Total Cost of Ownership is significantly lower when we invest in Apple Hardware and software, generally, than when we don't. Next in my purchase que is a custom configured XServe that I fully expect to get at least as long of a life span out of that hardware as I have from my original iMac (1998).
Vocation is "matching your heart's deep gladness to the hunger of the world" - Frederick Beuchner
When I bought my first computer, I had a choice of an Intel Pentium, Intel Pentium MMX, AMD K5, Cyrix 686 and the IBM branded version of the Cyrix 686. Within each of those models, I could chose different clock speeds.
Now, I have a choice various types of Atoms, Celerons, Pentium Dual Cores, Core IIs, Core i5s, Core i7s and Xeons, and that's just from Intel. Do we really need that many different product lines from the one company?
I'm not an old man and thus only have about 10 years experience with computers, but in those ten years, components have become more and more complicated.
It used to be that the faster processors had the highest numeral (eg, Pentium 2 Pentium 3) and the highest clock speed tacked to the end of them.
But now we've reached the brick wall of that megahertz race and we're in a new efficiency race, where things are not so simple. The highest numeral isn't always the best, and neither is the highest clock speed- although it still helps.
This would be far less of a problem if the older components died out, like they used to, but even that's not the case anymore.
For example, the Pentium brand is STILL alive, because when Intel get a load of duff C2D chips with bad caches, they dust them off and sell them as Pentiums. This is a lot more economical for them, but it means that the old generations of chips won't die to clean up the market for new ones.
Things would probably be a lot clearer if the older components could some how be killed off once and for all.
I find that when I build a new system I first think about what I will be doing most IE: video editing, gaming, etc and design my system around that. AMD or Intel let the fanboys fight that out both are good choices and have certain advantages. yes you will need to do research tom's hardware is always a good choice for getting information that does not sound like a foreign language. Also read the Newegg reviews for products you are thinking of purchasing.
Chris Sheppard
Sorry that's silentpcreview.com
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
It's sillier than you realise. Now we can't even RTFA, as it just forwards you straight to pricewatch shopping. What a waste of screenspace ... this is one article Slashdot should just retroactively shitcan (or at least edit out the misleading link).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I'm not above building my own system, but for my (relatively simple) needs, it rarely seems worth the effort. So I approach the problem in a somewhat backward manner. I start with a budget, scan the ads (BB, Fry's, Microcenter, Newegg, even TD) to see what's available in my price range, then check out the capabilities of each system and do a rough cost/benefit analysis to select a system to purchase. Works for me.
Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
I have found these resources indispensable in figuring out how modern CPUs and GPUs compare to each other:
... primarily because these tables are dynamic: find the part you're currently using (or want to use as your baseline for comparison) in the table, click on it, and then all the other parts in the table are immediately color-coded as to how much of a step forwards or backwards they are from that part, based on a normalized performance rating.
(It's pathetic that the marketing departments at the companies that make these things are so incompetent that we need tools like these to sort out what exactly they're selling us, but until they get on the ball I'm glad these tools exist.)
Read my blog.
Motherboard and PSU. Don't try to save money on these two by buying cheaper.
Everything else is determined only by how much money you have to spend.
Also, everything else can be upgraded/replaced without having to replace other components.
Pay close attention to PSUs 12V amperage - don't buy cheap Chinese ones that have hundreds of theoretical Watts but give only about 20 Amps on 12V.
12V is for all of your coolers, hard-drives (including external ones), optical drives and anything else you attach to it that has a motor or movable parts.
Buy ULTRA or Corsair (if you can't afford a ULTRA).
With motherboards, pay extra for the Deluxe or Pro model - however they call it.
Compare it to the "regular" version of the motherboard.
If it looks almost the same with maybe another PCI or USB slot added - the pricier one is the one that actually works as intended/advertised.
The cheaper "regular" model probably couldn't quite cut it, so it got downgraded from the original intended specs.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
A quad-core isn't necessarily more future-proof than a dual-core. A quad-core is only really better than a dual core when your most CPU-intensive application is multithreaded. Although chances are that the future will bring us a lot more multithreaded applications.
For servers it's easier. There, more cores is practically always going to be better.
If you're playing hot new games, a hot CPU is handy. So is a hot video card.
Not true. You need a better cooler.
Most PCs rarely use more than 200W. I'm using a 380W power supply, and it's more than enough.
Seconded. I have a rig that was fairly nice several years ago, with a 9800GT, core2 duo, 2 hard drives, and a mobo with onboard wireless. I was sure that it would need a 550 watt PSU, but i recently got a wattmeter and the PC only pulls ~160 watts while browsing the web. Fire up a benchmark program (futuremark) and it shoots up to an astonishing 230 watts.
Theres lots of misinformation out there when it comes to PSUs (although 550 watt isnt bad in this case, as it means energy efficiency is fairly good at my watt usage; 350-400w would have been ideal).
There's a point where $20 can get you quite a bit more punch, and then there's a point where you need to pay $100 more to get a significant boost. I like my CPUs (and GPUs) between those points: at the top of the mid-range or the bottom of the high-end.
But you're right. The vast majority of people don't even need that.
Right, because it's so damned hard to figure out? Spend a day or two at some nice hardware review sites and you will figure out very quickly what's good and what isn't. Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, and 3DGuru are good sites imo.
I recently did a semi-extensive study of the various quad core desktop processors available on NewEgg, leveraging the public benchmark results from PassMark to gauge their overall relative performance. I used the NewEgg prices and simply computed the number of benchmark points you get per dollar.
The only Intel chips that are competitive with AMD's on this metric are the Q8300, the i5-750, and the Q8400.. in that order, with only the Q8300 ranking better than ANY of the AMD chips on this value metric.
Here is the actual list I made up. Score is the PassMark score, the price is the NewEgg price, and the calculated value is score/price. Higher is thus better.
The Intel linup:
Core2 Quad Q8200, score = 3255, price = $184, value = 17.69
Core2 Quad Q8300, score = 3570, price = $150, value = 23.80
Core2 Quad Q8400, score = 3668, price = $170, value = 21.58
Core2 Quad Q9400, score = 3756, price = $190, value = 19.77
Core2 Quad Q9505, score = 4016, price = $240, value = 16.73
Core2 Quad Q9550, score = 4291, price = $260, value = 16.50
Core2 Quad Q9650, score = 4559, price = $330, value = 13.82
Core i5-750, score = 4219, price = $195, value = 21.64
Core i7-860, score = 5570, price = $280, value = 19.89
Core i7-870, score = 5871, price = $540, value = 10.87
Core i7-920, score = 5590, price = $289, value = 19.34
Core i7-950, score = 6309, price = $570, value = 11.07
Core i7-960, score = 6727, price = $590, value = 11.40
Core i7-975, score = 7101, price = $970, value = 7.32
The AMD lineup:
Phenom II x4 940 "Black", score = 3645, price = $156, value = 23.37
Phenom II x4 945 "Black", score = 3500, price = $150, value = 23.33
Phenom II x4 955 "Black", score = 3876, price = $160, value = 24.23
Phenom II x4 965 "Black", score = 4253, price = $180, value = 23.63
If you dont need the horsepower, then the Q8300 is the best at $150. The i5-750 makes a strong showing ay $195, but it is NOT a better processor for the money than AMD's Phenom II x4 965, which is both cheaper at $180 and scores better.
Note that these are also the "Black" edition AMD's which have unlocked multipliers, so they are also an overclockers dream if thats the route you might want to take.
"His name was James Damore."
Unfortunately you are still limited to comparing variations of the same apple, so if you want to see if it's a Xeon, Sempron or i7 you want/need many hardware reviews are just too limited.
Obscurity seems to be the life-line for the manufacturers these days and there is no simple way to compare the devices.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Yes there is. Intel revised their system quite well, you start at the bottom with the Core i3 and move up to the Core i7. Where they messed up is by calling the i7 8xx and 9xx series i7s... They should clearly be separate since they are on a different socket.
Nvidia is fairly similiar, go from the bottom of the barrel GT210 upto a GTX295. It gets confusing however if you try to use current model numbers to reference previous gen parts...
The BYO guide is a bit out of date now, but it'll help you get up to speed on processor architecture, motherboard chipsets, etc. From there of course ars technica, tom's hell even just browsing newegg's offerings will get you the rest of the way there.
Good luck.
The i3 530 is $125 at NewEgg, while the Athlon II X2 245 is $61 for maybe 2/3 the performance. Whether that's worth it to you depends on what you're doing and whether you're on a budget, obviously, but there's very little that the cheaper chip won't handle easily.
Tech report recently compared new generation processors with a 5 year old Pentium 4. http://techreport.com/articles.x/18448
It is still advisable to get a high-end PSU with more power than you actually need since they are manufactured better.
The PSU is the unit to fail most often in my experience (and most spectacularly). I don't buy cheap ones anymore.
It's not 800W PSUs that are manufactured better, it's PSUs from quality brands that are manufactured better. Even a high-specced PSU can fail if it's made out of crap.
Another reason not to get an oversized PSU is energy usage. A PSU generally runs at peak efficiency at 50%. So if you have a machine drawing 150W, it will draw more power from the socket if it has an 800W PSU than if it has a 300W PSU. (And if the 800W PSU is so badly manufactured that it's really only a 500W PSU, don't count on that improving the efficiency any.)
And of course wasted energy doesn't mean just a higher electricity bill and higher sea levels, it also means more heat in your PSU, a need for more cooling, and therefore more noise.
So which are the quality brands that you need to get? I know SeaSonic is very good. Corsair too, I think. But from Antec I heard a bit too much bad stuff. I don't know much about the others though. Look for 80+ certification. PSUs that have it are more efficient and probably better manufactured, but there, lying happens too: they only have 80+ efficiency under optimal conditions that never happen in a real PC.
Thats like being surprised that a race car driver doesn't know all the models and changes from the big automotive companies.
Do F1 drivers know what changes are being made to 2011 BMW, Toyota, GM, Hyundai/Kia and Fords? Do NASCAR drivers know what is coming out from Mercedes, BMW, Ferrari, Ford?
Can most race car drivers assemble a car motor or can fighter pilots put together a jet engine?
I believe this adds a whole new dimension to the compatibility and benchmark question...
Doesn't that mean you're basically buying a new PC every year?
Here is the actual list I made up.
Okay, I know what you're saying, but some phrases do not inspire confidence :)
When confronted with one problem, some think "I'll use recursion". Now they are confronted with one problem.