Where have PC Speeds gone??

Question

Yesteryear the PCs were going from
1.9ghz to 2.0-2.4-2.6-3.0-3.4ghz.. and seemed in my eyes the speeds were climbing quick. Even in Laptops, my mate had one at 2.8ghz..[P4]...Nowdays.. i got a laptop at 1.6ghz..and the desktops are at like 2.6ghz or near there...
They seem to have slowed the speeds down and more so gone for the Cores instead, Duel core, Quad cores....etc...
Is a duel core really any better ??? r is higher speeds Better for us??
I keep getting told XP or even Vista is still programed for a Single core PC, and not quite got the goods for a Duel core, if that makes any scence to you guys..
( i know im into Tek and PC Specs, tho not to into the Really Technicals of it all :) ..)
I thought back 2yrs that todays PC would be like 5.6ghz...

cheers..

Answer 1

Well, there is more to speed than just the processor. The buss speeds, HD speeds, Memory Speeds all have a major effect on the entire system. Two 2 gig processors will out perform one 4 gig one period. It can still only perform ONE process at a time. Two simply handle the movement of data faster doing two. Add a high speed buss, drive, and memory you get more for less (less heat, less power, etc). 64bit processing moves twice the data as 32 so the wider and faster the quicker the result. True the OS has to properly support that (Linux does better at it than Windows but Windows enjoys wider use.) process and that can be improved.

Answer 2

To put this in perspective, I have a 3.06Ghz laptop and get a super PI rating of about 1min to 1million points (calculate PI to 1 million takes about a minute


A Core 2 Duo processor at 2.2Ghz can do the same task in under 20 seconds.

As for mp3 or divx encoding the numbers are even better for the 'slower' Core 2 Duo processor.

The 2 processors are only half of the reason. The other half is that the newer processors are more efficient at calculations. They simply do more with the speed they have. Look at the AMD processors....The AMD 3000 is actually only 2Ghz (or so) but ran at the speed of a Pentium 3Ghz because it was more efficient.

Faster processors use more electricity (so bad battery life) and make more waste heat (overheating laptops anyone) so pushing them faster than my Pentium IV 3.06Ghz wasn't a great idea.

As for nothing using the two processors, I'm starting to see games come out optimized for dual core processors (Shadowrun) so it is coming

Answer 3

Ya duel core is better simple as and its cheaper to have a dual core than a single faster chip. And ya chip development is slowing down in the area of speed, efficency is the key developmental area at the moment as current technologies limit the commercial viability of producing faster and faster chips

Answer 4

dual core is way better because it just like having a car with to motors in it better performance as the 2 cores means if you have 20 programs open Thos 20 programs are shared between the 2 giving you better performance

but what beats dual core is core 2 duo as its much the same but has better features like lower power consumption faster speed

Answer 5

there's different technology for desktop and laptops. so is the main difference in speed of desktop and laptops. dual core and all others like are meant for better graphics processing and math processings.but for general use you don't have to run behind the speeds . but if you happen to use servers, or dedicated game pc specially online ofcourse you need better and new tech processors. they do more calculations in same time,.