Members D Aussie Posted January 31, 2008 Members Share Posted January 31, 2008 Now in the olden days, the speed of the PC was easy to work out. 486 was faster than 386. No problem. Then when we got Pentium, same deal, 366 was faster than 166. No problem. What the hell are all these new chippies and how do you know what is which? Centrino Celeron Pentium Athalon Dual Core Core 2 duo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bholder Posted January 31, 2008 Members Share Posted January 31, 2008 It Depends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members D Aussie Posted January 31, 2008 Author Members Share Posted January 31, 2008 It Depends. I thought it might, you Noodle Cup:mad: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SteveyDevey Posted January 31, 2008 Members Share Posted January 31, 2008 First, let's throw Dual Core out. It's not a family of chips like the others. It's just a type. It mean there are two processing cores in the same physical chip. It's sort of like having two processors on a motherboard, without having to have two chips. Most processors these days are dual or quad core. This can be extremely useful, because when a single process goes crazy, it doesn't have to bog the whole machine down. Your other core can still handle instructions independently, and let you continue working on things until the other gets done. There are 2 major processor manufacturers these days. Intel and AMD. Intel is ahead again these days, but that's a conversation for another day. Intel was the one who made the old 286/386/486 chips. They also make the Pentiums, Celerons, Core 2 Duos, and more. The Pentium was the next step after the old trusty 486, and is also referred to as a 586. Celerons are the budget replacement for the Pentium, with less in the way of internal features/etc. The Core family were a branch off of the Pentium M chips, used originally as only mobile chips, but have moved onto the desktop as well. Lastly, their Xeon chips are for high-end workstations and servers. Centrino is actually a collection of parts that Intel has decided works well as a group, including a Pentium M chip and some chipsets for network support. AMD's chips have been things like the K6, Athlon, Sempron, Opteron, and more. They have dual core chips as well, labeling theirs as "X2" instead of things like "duo". Athlon has been their mainstream line to compete with Intel's Pentiums, where the semprons are their equivalent to the Celeron (at least from a very basic perspective). The opteron is also AMD's offering to fill the gap on their side where the Xeon lives. This is all basically just off-the-cuff from memory (with a few quick checks), so any corrections are certainly welcome. I'm not much of a hardware person, so a ton of it could need some tweaks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members t3ch Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 Stevey pretty much covered all the basics, so I won't elaborate. I will say, however, to steer completely clear of the budget cores. Celeron is a big no no. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SteveyDevey Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 Stevey pretty much covered all the basics, so I won't elaborate.I will say, however, to steer completely clear of the budget cores. Celeron is a big no no. One thing I forgot to mention is that some of the better chips (especially the mobile Intel chips) are a lot better at power usage than they used to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrcrow Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 Stevey pretty much covered all the basics, so I won't elaborate. I will say, however, to steer completely clear of the budget cores. Celeron is a big no no. brilliant answer stevey... i have just recently found out the smarmy difference between dual core and core 2 dual..or whatever my choices lie with intel core 2 dual and assume all the rest are slower and are less expesive models from other suppliers my present pc uses athlon...wait for it...1200... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tom_s252 Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 Just to add to the confusion, there are Centrino Duos, which are dual-core Centrino laptop chips... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrcrow Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 not forgetting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Zeromus-X Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 Actually, the newer Celerons are based off the Core 2 design, and are significantly better than the old ones. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a C2-based Celeron. Unfortunately, unless you keep up with model numbers, you really don't know if you're getting one of those or if you're getting a "regular" one. Either way, even the slowest Celeron that's out there nowadays is plenty to run Windows XP and get online and do basic stuff. We sell them all day here and people are more than happy, and the good thing is that they use the same socket as the higher processors so it's easy to upgrade 'em later. Also in general, AMD chips consume more power (and thereby put out more heat) than their Intel counterparts. Processor speed isn't so much an issue anymore; that's why you used to see 166 MHz, 333 MHz, etc. Nowadays processors are "fast enough" for most things and they've gone on to speed ratings, which can make it difficult to compare two chips. For example, what's better, an AMD Sempron LE-1100 1.9 GHz or a Celeron C2 1.6 GHz? The answer is the Celeron, by far, but you'd not know that if you strictly looked at processor speeds. If you're looking at a desktop there's really nothing wrong going between AMD and Intel. For laptops, I typically tell people to shy away from AMD; the higher power means lower battery life (in general), and more heat to get rid of. Finally, if you're planning on running Vista, I recommend a Core 2 Duo (or Athlon X2) chip at minimum -- it makes a HUGE difference. A Core 2 Duo with a couple gigs of memory and Vista can fly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rummy Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 Athlon 64 = goodCore 2 duo = good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rowka Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 My notebook has this:Pentium M Dothan, 1.6GHZ, 2 MEGB, 533FSB Is it upgradeable? If so, to what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rummy Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 My notebook has this:Pentium M Dothan, 1.6GHZ, 2 MEGB, 533FSBIs it upgradeable? If so, to what? No. You can add more memory to your setup, but as far as the processor goes, it's not upgradeable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rowka Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 I can't pop it out and put a newer one in like I've done on my tower? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fran da Man Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 Zero, this is whats in my notebook: Celeron M 440@1.86 GHz, 1861 MHz, 1 Core, 1 Logical Processor, Vista basic, 2 GB memory. ...well it was cheap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrcrow Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 my new laptop is # Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 - 2GHz (x2), 800MHz FSB, 4MB L2 Cache# RAM: 1GB DDR2 (Maximum Memory 4GB)# Hard Drive: 160GB Serial ATA# Screen: 15.4" Widescreen TFT (1280x800)# Optical Drive: DVD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Zeromus-X Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 I can't pop it out and put a newer one in like I've done on my tower? Some notebooks use a standard Socket 775 interface that you can replace the chip. It's not optimal but it's used to save money. The problem is that you're going to have to find a chip that runs at the same voltage and works with the same cooling system -- which is pretty much gonna be the same chip. Most likely, however, your processor is soldered onto the motherboard and you can't physically remove it. I'd estimate about 98 out of 100 notebook computers are made this way. You can upgrade the memory and the hard drive, but not the processor. Always spend a little more on the processor when you buy a notebook since the rest can be changed later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SteveyDevey Posted February 1, 2008 Members Share Posted February 1, 2008 Always spend a little more on the processor when you buy a notebook since the rest can be changed later.And often should be upgraded later, if you are budget conscious. One way to watch the price of a laptop go up quickly is to start having the maker add more ram or a larger hard drive. It's much cheaper to upgrade on your own, for the most part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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