which is faster?????

Question

if i run one program (not multi-task) which would be faster
intel pentium 4 3.2 GHZ
****or*****
intel core 2 duo 1.73 GHZ

Answer 1

duo no contest

Answer 2

Herbert made what sounded like a very good point, but he did forget one small thing called Instructions Per Cycle (IPC). The problem is that that one little thing happens to be just about the most important thing to consider when comparing processors. The Core 2 Duo has a much much better IPC than the Pentium 4, even at a lower clock speed, even when doing one thing at a time. Also add in the fact that you are NEVER running just one program at a time (Windows is always running a ton of stuff in the background) the Core 2 Duo is better.

Answer 3

I guess I'm the dissenting vote. By definition, a single stream of machine code instructions executing at 3.2 GHz will execute faster than at 1.73 GHz. This is enhanced further by the hyperthreading technology (HT) found in Pentium 4 CPUs at that speed. HT will prefetch the instructions, register values, and even some of the addressed memory ranges before primary instruction execution.

Dual-core and quad-core CPUs excel at multi-tasking applications, especially server operating systems. The nature of modern client operating systems now involves some multi-tasking, e.g., anti-virus while web browsing, so even PCs benefit from the new dual-core processors. This effect will only increase as high-end CPU-intensive software, primarily video games, are programmed to take advantage of the capabilities now found in newer PCs. However, purely addressing the question as asked, the faster single-threaded CPU will perform better on single-threaded applications.

One such application is Microsoft Train Simluator, for which the community has a wealth of benchmark experience posted. The older HT CPUs execute this software much faster than the newer dual-cores. Many other benchmarks are available on Tom's Hardware Guide. See the source links below.

Answer 4

IMO, I'd go with the Core 2 Duo. This way, different apps and resources can use seperate processors. I have an Intel Centrino Duo and I usually run up to 10 big resource using apps at a time and it runs pretty smooth.

Answer 5

intel core 2 duo is a better bargain

Answer 6

core 2 duo.no doubt