How come an Intel® Core™2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz),Only has 2.4gHZ while Pentium 4 has 2.8ghz?

Question

How come an Intel® Core™2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz),Only has 2.4gHZ while Pentium 4 has 2.8ghz?
I dont understand, isnt it supposed to be better?

Answer 1

it is more efficient in the usage of clock cycles.
What you need to know is that it is plain better.

Answer 2

Yes, but GHz are not everything. Pentium 4 (P4) is a single core, 512 KB of cache processor. While in practically the SAME amount of space the Q6600 has FOUR processor cores and 16 times the cache. Also, the EACH core on the Q6600 can handle 4 instructions at a time, for a total of 16. While the P4 ONLY performs 3 instructions. So you do the math.

Answer 3

To understand this you first need to realize how the processor work. Ghz - refers to the internal clock of the microprocessor (i.e. how many operations per second). While this greatly affects performance of the processor there are other factors that influence a processor more. The L2 cache is one of them. L2 cache is used to store instruction that the processor have to process (instead of going to the hard drive and reading them, which is very slow). Additionally the quad core has 4 cores and allows to perform 4 operations at the same time while the Pentium 4 has single core and is limited to only 1 operation a time. Additional facts affecting are the programs them selves. Some programs (7z) are designed to take advantage of dual core other are not (but as the technology progresses) more and more programmers are focusing and multi core/thread programming. So my advice is buy the Quad Core its worth it (or at least buy dual core)

Answer 4

basically, they run slower than your current computer but they can run 4 times (quad) as many things as there are 4 cores. Think about it as if they are 2 vehicles, (for hypothetical purposes, lets say that they are both 3.2 GHz fast) but one is a car while the other one is a lorry (exaggerated difference) so the car travels as fast but can only take an 'x' load but the lorry travels as fast but can take 4 times 'x' load. So the lorry is quad core and your pentium 4 is a the single core car (I assume). Although some applications now have ways to make use of this so some apps use 2 .exe's to run so that they utilise both cores or in the case of quad, well 4. It is very simple really, I was just as baffled as you are when this got released (but truth be told, I thought quad core would run at 4 times the given speed i.e. 2.4 GHz x 4= 9.6GHz !) Hope I helped demystify your problem. Thanks

Answer 5

Umm the quad runs 1066FSB and the P4 800FSB for one thing. The quad also has bigger L1 and L2 caches and will run up to 4 threads at the same time versus the P4s one thread. If you look at these benchmarks you'll see how much better the 2.4 quad is over the 2.8 P4. Oh, the P4s way down at the bottom.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=871&model2=912&chart=419

Answer 6

Well, do the math, 4x2.4 or 1x2.8 which do you think would be faster?

With Quad core you have four internal processors working!
One of the main reasons for multi core was to lower the operating speed and reduce heat. They do that well!

Answer 7

it is better. pentium 4 only has one core. one head doing all the thinking at speeds of 2.8ghz. the quad core has of course four heads each one doing a specific thinking at speeds of 2.4 ghz. so you will have four times the efficiency in multi tasking and multi threading task.