Issue 50.10
The CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the brain of your computer and determines to a great extent how fast it will work and how “cool” the special effects and graphics capability can be. Chip companies are constantly trying to find newer, faster and especially cooler (temperature-wise) ways they can make them. When you look inside your computer, you will usually see a very large fan attached to a very large heat-sink (silver or copper colored) that covers a relatively small flat chip that is attached to the motherboard (large main controller board that everything else is plugged in to.)
The first of two things they have done in the last few years to accomplish their goals is to create chips with more than one brain on it and link them so they help each other. This makes them both work well and the whole system to work much faster. Another is to program these chips so they can handle more than one set of instructions at a time. We call this multi-tasking when humans do it. When computers do it, we call it Multi-Threading. Each thread is following a set of instructions independent of the other threads. Computers that have more than one brain and can multi-task with each are significantly faster at most things than the earlier models.
As if it wasn’t already confusing trying to figure out whether an Intel or AMD processor is faster or better for your computer, now Intel has introduced the Core i processors to the market and they don’t make it easy to find out what they are specifically designed for and how fast they are. AMD has the Athlon, Sempron, Duron and Phenom processors, and in the Athlon and Sempron styles they have X2 and X4 version It takes a little checking to see what is best. That is also true of the Intel Dual Core, Core Duo, Extreme, etc.
This year, Intel introduced the new Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. i3 processors are dual core and can follow 4 threads at a time. i5 processors have either dual or quad (4) core systems and also have 4 thread capability but are faster as a group than the i3’s. i7 processors have 4 or 6 cores and can run from 8 to 12 threads at a time which makes them extremely fast for most applications. Prices reflect the difference, as the suggested retail for the basic i3 chips run around $100 and the highest speed i7’s are currently in the $1000 to $1200 range. Add about 20-30 per cent to that for the cost of cooling them (these chips generate a tremendous amount of heat for such a small item) and you can spend a little or a lot before you even consider the memory, hard drive, CD, DVD, graphics card, etc.
If you are in the market for a new, faster processor or computer system, it is good to look into these. For most of us with limited cash, the older Dual Core systems (Core Duo, X2, etc) are still very powerful and can help keep the cost down. With the requirements of Windows 7, I no longer recommend the single core based systems (Duron, Sempron, Celeron or Pentium 4) unless you are buying a netbook and don’t need much speed or you are buying a used system with Windows XP or Linux included.
I hope that can help you with your research and, as I always say – stay safe – and make sure you have a backup of anything important.