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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
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CPUs - New vs Old

By | February 17, 2010, 8:38am PST

Summary: It’s sometimes really hard to gauge just how much progress has been made in the silicon world over the past few years. The problem with most benchmarks is that they are used to compare the latest stuff with stuff that was the latest a few minutes ago. However, the ever-useful The Tech Report has put together a benchmark of CPUs ranging from the monster Core i7 975 “Extreme Edition” all the way down to the lowly Pentium 4 670.

It’s sometimes really hard to gauge just how much progress has been made in the silicon world over the past few years. The problem with most benchmarks is that they are used to compare the latest stuff with stuff that was the latest a few minutes ago. However, the ever-useful The Tech Report has put together a benchmark of CPUs ranging from the monster Core i7 975 “Extreme Edition” all the way down to the lowly Pentium 4 670.

Note: The Pentium 4 670 is a single-core 3.8GHz part dating back to around May 2005. Here’s a good review of the CPU when it was released.

The results are, quite honestly, breathtaking. Some highlights worth checking out:

Well worth a read, even if only to see how far things have come along since 2005!

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Intel Pentium, Intel Pentium 4, CPU, Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

Disclosure

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

All opinions expressed on Hardware 2.0 are those of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Every effort is made to ensure that the information posted is accurate. If you have any comments, queries or corrections, please contact Adrian via the email link here. Any possible conflicts of interest will be posted below. [Updated: February 23, 2010] - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other actual/potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted so far on this blog.

Biography

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology -- whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera.

Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs. His most recent books include "Build the Ultimate Custom PC", "Beginning Programming" and "The PC Doctor's Fix It Yourself Guide". He has also written training manuals that have been used by a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Adrian also runs a popular blog under the name The PC Doctor, where he covers a range of computer-related topics -- from security to repairing and upgrading.

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RE: CPUs - New vs Old
Galdang 18th Feb 2010
so what the new is 5 times faster than the old?
If people use it for browsing, documents, email etc. would there be any noticeably difference?
nice to know, nice for gamers but hardly something to worry about IRL
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Intel is confused
amasys 17th Feb 2010
When they introd the new Core I3, I5 & I7 they started on their road to destruction...If people are confused they will eventually balk...How good is the i5; who the hell knows...not even intel can tell you!!!
Sad Real Sad..
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This is somthing a lot of manufacturers are facing
cornpie 17th Feb 2010
And not just with CPUs. Try figuring out which video card to buy. The model numbers are confusing at best and the average consumer is not equipped to make a good decision.

We have i3, i5, and i7. Higher numbers are better right? Well...not necessarily...it depends on what you want to do with it. Ok, so look at the specs....hmmmm more or less Mhz, more or less cache, two or four cores, different bus and memory speeds, hyper threading or no hyperthreading etc, etc, etc. And that's just Intel. How do you the compare Intel to AMD.

To decide which you need you really need to see benchmarks for the particular applications you want to run and even then, its tough to tell how well the benchmarks equate to real world performance that we can actually feel.

Video cards are even worse. I can see a consumer thinking he is buying something that's better than he already has because the model number is higher.

I'd like to see all the hardware manufacturers and vendors do a better job of conveying thie information in a way that doesn't require you to do weeks of research before buying.

That said, those of us who are willing and able to do said research will get the best deals.
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The benefits don't justify the costs
cornpie 17th Feb 2010
Example: If you compare that i7975 with the Q6600 (the original Intel Quad core from a few years ago) on the surface that Left For Dead benchmark does seem "breathtaking". However, when you think about it, the frame rates of 114 average and 66 low for the Q6600 are more than adequate to play the game. Unless you are a real "FPS" junkie, then you may not even notice the difference in the real world. Also, If you have that several year old Q6600 then your video card is probably that old too. If you are looking to get a real world improvement in performance and didn't have $1,000 to spend just on a CPU, you would be better served dropping $200 or so on a new video card and sticking with your still adequate CPU.

If you are building a new system anyway, the cheaper i3's look attractive to me. Once again when allocating your $$ on a gaming system you are probably better served going adequate on CPU and spending the money on the video card.

And lets be honest. For non-gaming uses most people are going to find that i3 way more than adequate for most things. Most software still really doesn't benefit from a quad core and even if you do something that does, the cheaper ones are usually good enough.

One final observation: Have a look at the difference in scores between the i5750 and the i7975. There is almost no performance difference between the two (certainly not enough difference for most of us to notice) but the price (per NewEgg) is $195 Vs. $990. The i975 is 5 times more expensive for little to no benefit in these tests. What does that tell you?
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Hard to say
CobraA1 Updated - 17th Feb 2010
The jump from the Pentium to the Core stuff was a pretty big jump, but after that, things seem to taper off a bit. Starting to look a bit more linear than exponential.

Also, applications that take full advantage of the cores tend to be more specialized.

In addition, there seems to be a huge push towards internet-based apps, which means that apps that take advantage of local CPU power will probably continue to be more specialized.

Not that I really like the "everything is going to the Internet" trend, but it does seem that the industry is pushing for that, whether consumers like it or not.

So, will Moore's law continue, and will it continue to be important? Hard to say.

It might not be able to go on forever, though - even with exotic technologies, it seems there are fundamental limits to our universe that can't be overcome by any current known methods, practical or theoretical.

Unless we discover something totally off the wall and completely unknown to us presently, it's only a matter of when we hit the limit, not if.
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"[T]he lowly Pentium 4 670"?
Zogg Updated - 17th Feb 2010
Good grief! You make my (dual) P4 Northwood PC (circa 2003) sound like pond-scum wink !
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Atom CPUs?
Ad Astra 17th Feb 2010
I'd be interested in seeing Atom CPUs in there.
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Atoms
Cylon Centurion 17th Feb 2010
They wouldn't even rank would be my bet sad

Atoms are nice, but even running a Linux distro they're only meant for light tasks.
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They'd be killed . . .
CobraA1 17th Feb 2010
Atoms wouldn't even rank, as the other person said . . .

The Atom is underpowered for pretty much everything except casual Internet and Office use. You can run 2D games like PopCap games and Flash games, but I wouldn't try 3D on them. I have troubles getting even WoW to run acceptably on a netbook.
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Actually...
Federico Churca Torrusio 18th Feb 2010
...I can run Counter-Strike 1.6 on my Dell Mini 10. But on maps without too many transparent/translucent surfaces. And with detail turned to minimum. And without using smoke grenades.

Meh, practically I can't XD

Although the main problem is the video chipset, the CPU isn't a thunderbolt.
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Atoms
Ad Astra 17th Feb 2010
The reason I'm asking is because I want to know just how
slow they are. I mostly use my netbook for office apps,
and it's a tad bit sluggish for some of my monster
spreadsheets.

I know better than to try to run a modern game on them.
happy
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Atoms have a lot of uses many don't recognize
mheartwood Updated - 17th Feb 2010
A great many network administrators I know use Pentium 3 machines as routers. They're cheap. They have more than enough power for the task. They generally top out at 1.3GHz and 1GB of 133MHz SDRAM.

Now, consider building a router from an Atom. 1.6GHz and upto 4GB of 533Mhz DDR2 RAM. That tells you it's an improvement already. But wait! You can get dual core Atoms as well.

And all of this for less electrical power. And the way they process code, much the same as an old P3.

So Atoms may not be good at games, but they are far more useful to the embedded market than most people think.
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Extra EEEpc
mathew.gauvin@... 18th Feb 2010
A friend of mine just got a 'real' laptop and she just handed her netbook to me free. Sweet! I already had one that I put Linux Mint on, but now I have one that I can really trash and experiment with. I'm THRILLED!
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What about my trusty ol' Z-80 ?
alan_r_cam 18th Feb 2010
That chip was a humdinger - in it's day
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Getting less gains recently
jscott418 18th Feb 2010
I think the other thing that these test show is that in five years we have made big gains. But in the last two not so much. Kind of helps decide if you need a new computer. If its 4 or 5 years old yes. If its less then two no.
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Expense of Socket 1366 hardly seems justified
djchandler 18th Feb 2010
When it comes to price/performance, the i5-750 is the author's pick, with the Phenom II X4 965 right behind until you consider power consumption. If you leave your system on a lot it should be given more consideration than what most fully configured system purchasers do. Other features could mitigate the power consumption numbers, such as using the built in HD 4200 IGP in the test configuration motherboard instead of a discrete video card.

But then the game benchmarks would have been pointless. It would have been interesting to see an ATI card thrown into the mix too.

Why would you buy a Socket 1366 system? Unless you do professional graphics or video work, it hardly seems worth the extra expense.
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RE: CPUs - New vs Old
Galdang 18th Feb 2010
so what the new is 5 times faster than the old?
If people use it for browsing, documents, email etc. would there be any noticeably difference?
nice to know, nice for gamers but hardly something to worry about IRL

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