can someone please answer my 3 questions about dual processors... ...?

Question

1. is a 1.70 ghz dual processor equal to 3.4 ghz single processor?

2. why does my brothers 3.0 ghz single processor computer go faster than his laptop that has a 1.70 dual processor

3. why did they decide to go from 3.0+ ghz for single processors back to around 1.70 ghz for dual processors? shouldn't they have continued from 3.0 ghz and on?

Answer 1

1. NO. Each processing core works INDEPENDENTLY, so therefore the clock never adds up. Think of it as 2 cars traveling at 10 miles per hour. Will both of these cars add up to a total of 20 miles per hour? NO, same goes with multi-core processors.



2. You are probably running single-threaded applications. They run better in a CPU with a higher clock. Most laptops cannot be highly clocked due to their limited size and weight of the heatsink.



3. less heat, energy, and more multitasking efficiency.

Answer 2

1. No, 1.70 Dual Core has 2 cores, 1 dedicated to do the system processes and the other one for your applications though when in need it can divert a bit of speed from the prior to the latter. You can use the formula

Dual Core speed* 1.4 = Pentium speed.

Roughly a Dual Core 1.7 would give you a processing power equivalent to 2.4 GHz Pentium 4.

Also it depends on the RAM and the FSB of the mobo that these system have?



2. Refer to 1st Answer..



3. A 3.0 GHz processor uses almost 2 times the voltage that 1.7 Dual Core and produces a lot more heat than a Dual Core. 2 Processors with divided work will heat up less as compared to only one doing all the work. Intel tried to go over 3.6 GHz on Pentium they ended up with burnt motherboards while running the stress tests !!



* It also depends OS, If you have 2 systems with the same processor, RAM the first with xp and the other with Vista, the xp system will be faster.

Answer 3

1. Not really, on basic benchmarks, you get approximately 75-85% of the realized speed. That means that a 1.7Ghz Dual-core is approximately 2.5ghz. Maybe even less. The problem lies in the cache allocation, without going into too much detail- the speed advantage is based on the Core2 design, which does NOT mean Dual-Core.... It's just the "Pentium" of the future.

2. Chances are, the Intel SpeedStep technology is what is showing to be the cause of the slowdown. Newer CPU's are using less power by throttling down their speed on the fly in order to not waste power doing nothing. If you press WinKey-Pause/Break You'll likely see the reported speed of the processor does not match the true speed. a 1.7mhz might slow down to 700mhz if you aren't doing anything that is using clock cycles. But if you were to benchmark the two machines using PcMark or any other benchmarking software, you'll see that your brother's 3.0Ghz Desktop doesn't have SpeedStep, and is possibly Hyper-Threaded, a precursor to Core2.

3. Cpu designers were getting corrupted data around 3.7Ghz. This was mostly due to bleed-over of the high-speed signals. Overclockers have fought with this for ages, i.e. Liquid-Nitrogen cooling to achieve 6.8+Ghz... Which is why a 3.4 is the fastest CPU made, then they decided the solution wasn't faster and faster clocks, but more THREADS. thus the Core2Duo and Core2Quad were born. With the upcoming Nahalem processor, with integrated memory controller "End of the Frontside Bus?" and 8 cores running hyper-threaded. 16 threads per tick. Sick.



Also, if you happen to be riddled with Vista, that would do it as well. You can only compare machines, not OS's.

Answer 4

different designs of the CPU's do different amounts of work per "clock cycle" You can only use the Ghz speed of a CPU to compare it to exactly the same model of CPU.



For example a Pentium4 running at 3Ghz will be much slower than a core2 duo running at 1.7ghz. Also, a core duo is NOT a core2 duo, again different architecture.



AMD64 processors can not be compared to any intel, on the basis of clock rate.



They could not continue speeding up the P4 line of processors any further than they were, they were hitting heat limitations, where it was physically imposible to dissapate the amount of heat that the chips were producing. Instead, they redesigned the CPU to do many more steps per clock cycle.



The real answer to your question is the word "latop" you have in your question. Latops are generally (not always) slower than a desktop that looks "similar" in specifications. One reason is the Hard drive in most laptops only spins around 4500 to 5400 RPM, and most Desktops spin at 7500-10,000 rpm.



Also, without knowing the amount of RAM and what operating systems are on the 2 it is not possible to say that one is faster than the other...



If the laptop has vista and the desktop has any other operating system, the laptop WILL be slower... Just because it's vista... and the desktop is NOT vista :)



Because the laptop is 1.7 Ghz, and because you are surprised that it is slower than 3, it must be newer, so I'm guessing it's a core2 duo system, the only chips that were produced at 3.0 Ghz were Pentium 4's.



The CPU in the laptop IS (considerably) faster than the P4 3.0 Ghz, it's just the rest of the differences that make the laptop slower.

Answer 5

1.is a 1.7ghz dual core processor = to a 3.4ghz single?. It depends on the software or game you are using. Dual cores and quad cores are a thing of the future. So the software has not been setup yet to understand them.



Then why? Dual cores will allow you to do multi tasking a lot better. They will split the tasks. Such as, watching a movie, while chatting, and downloading, and being on the internet. The 3.4ghz has a lot of power, but all of that can cause a traffic jam. A "bottleneck" So they opened up more roads so to say, and use 2 engines instead of 1.



To test them, you can run many benchmarks to compare. The truth? Which one works best for you? Believe it or not, the 1.7ghz could run kinda slow with some stuff =/



2. now to answer why the 3.0ghz (desktop?) is faster than 1.7ghz laptop. The 3.0ghz is faster in what way?



A. if it is graphics and gaming, this is simple. The graphics card is usually integrated into the laptop. Sharing ram as graphics memory. These are usually slower to save battery life. you can go to start menu, run, dxdiag. underneath the display tab you can see what you graphics card is. Also a good tip to see if your memory is shard. Right click my computer, and look at the memory. If you have 512, and the screen says you only have 480, its because 32 is dedicated to graphics. =) Thats where it went! people always ask why that number is low, now you know.



The desktop might have an upgraded agp or pci-e graphics card. If so, it will beat the lap top no matter what in gaming. That it one thing you give up with portability.



B. One other way the 3.0ghz could be "faster" Opening programs or using file compressions. converting music or video. These do not require graphics. It is the processor.



Since the 3.0ghz has more speed then a 1.7ghz, that is obvious math when software and programs only use single cores. But when you compress files and covert music and video, you should see better times out of the dual core, unless you need new software. The 2 paths and more cpu memory(cache) will add to the advantage.



3.They went from 3.0ghz to 1.7 dual processors hoping to eventually get dual or quad 3.0ghz. Some of the dual core processors and quad cores have closer speeds to the 3.0ghz. 4 paths to the quad core also make a super expressway to 4 engines. what does that add up to? converting files, running games, wow. You only run the newest best software, programs and games. They in return will use the dual and quad processors...



Because of heat, it is hard to go above 3.0ghz -4.0ghz for air cooling, noise, and warranty reasons. It adds up to more heat. So by putting on 2 smaller engines, you get less heat, and less power consumption. They don't need to go as fast as 3.0ghz to get the same job done.



That is more than likely why the dual core 1.7ghz is in the latop. It will also probably have a feature to run at a speed of even lower than 1.7ghz when idle to save even more battery life and less heat.



Hopefully that will continue from 3.0ghz on, and we will see 4.0ghz multi cores. I want to see multi computers. 8 cores 16 cores. wow. whats next.



To add it all up. The dual core can be slower or faster than a 3.0ghz. Depends on what you're doing. More ram is always a good thing. =)

Answer 6

1. Nope, it is 2 cores, each running at 1.70 GHz



2. Because, the desktop must have something that makes it run faster, such as RAM or a graphics card



3. I am not sure, honestly maybe since its two cores in one it would have been, eh harder to cram the 2 3.0GHz core doo-dah's would have had too much heat, or too large?

Answer 7

because Cesc Fabregas is better than Steven Gerrard