# Digital dillemas. D:



## Horrorshow (Oct 12, 2007)

Okay, I want to start off by apologizing, because I'm sure this question has been asked way too many times. Finally, I have some income, and that means that I can actually get some new parts for my computer. Now, what I'm looking for is a new processor, but I'm not quite sure /what/ I'm looking for. 

I'm mainly having troubles determining which of the specifications are actually important to doing digital graphics. Can anyone suggest what I actually should keep an eye out for?


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## Janglur (Oct 12, 2007)

None.


Basically, the CPU has little to nothing to do with the quality of stuff you make.  Even in 3d rendering, these days.

What you'd benefit most from is a dual core.  Intel is currently dominant in performance over AMD (a title AMD held for many years until recently) and much cheaper, and use less power.

Avoid Semprons and Celerons of any sort.


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## net-cat (Oct 12, 2007)

Well, nothing will affect the _quality_ of the renders. Modern rendering software can (probably) be run on a 386 with a little hacking. 

For speed, though, you want RAM and CPU.

RAM: More is better, up to a certain point. (However, having more than that probably won't hurt.) 2GB is probably not far off the mark...

CPU: Core 2 (Duo/Quad/Extreme) or Athlon X2. Anything else is either old tech stripped down new stuff. (In either case, you'll probably need a new motherboard, as well.)

Higher clock speeds are good.
More L2 cache is good. (1M, 2M and 4M are commonly seen today.)
If the programs you're using are multi-threaded, more cores are good. (If not, dual core. You can use one core to render and the other to keep using your computer normally.)

Also note that, while yes, Older Intel chips (Pentium, Pentium D) have higher clock speeds than modern chips, a 3GHz Pentium D performs about the same as a 2GHz Core 2 Duo and uses about twice the power. If you want to economize, AMD is your friend.

You will also need storage, especially if you plan to do any video. More hard drive space. Last I checked, the lowest Price-per-GB drives tended to be 250GB drives. This was about six months ago, though.


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## Janglur (Oct 12, 2007)

Also a warning, more L2 =/= faster.  Larger L2 arrays may have significantly longer access times (17 and 27, in the case of 1MB versus 2 MB) so don't go thinking that bigger numbers mean better performance across the board.
More cache will make SOME things faster, but slower access will make most things slower.

There's a ton of actual consideration and things to learn.  But, for the most part, just go for a good priceerformance ratio.  The EE/Extreme Edition are a bit of a waste.  They offer very little in the way of improved performance, but a hefty increase in price.  Plus, precious little on the market even utilizes a CPU half way.  CPUs are severely overpowered for current games and software.  It's the RAM, video cards, and especially storage that are lagging behind everything.


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## net-cat (Oct 13, 2007)

Out of curiosity, where are you finding those access times? (And what units? ns, ms or clock cycles?) 

And yes, "Extreme" chips are a waste of money. (As are most computer products with "Extreme" or "Gamer" in their name...)


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## Janglur (Oct 13, 2007)

Those were some random memories of an EE and non-EE equivalent I had compared in ye olde p4 days.
It was cycles.

I found that even a couple cycle difference made a noticeable difference in benches for small programs, such as pifast.  Though they largely unaffected other things, such as games or noticeability.  Until recently, i've never found any use for larger caches.  Now, finally, programs seem to have begun making use of it.

I remember a hack with Applebred Durons to disable the L2 cache.  The CPU became a lot more overclockable as a result.  And even a small OC would cancel out the lost benches!  1.4 GHz cranked to 3.0 GHz is a nice thing.

Also, low latency is what made the Tualatin so nice.  It far outstripped it's competitors and equivalents due to that detail.  It was an entire cycle faster in L1 and about half the latency in L2.  Ah, Tualatin.  How I loved thee.


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## Horrorshow (Oct 13, 2007)

Lawd, is dem some actually helpful replies?

I do think I'll follow up on the advice here, so much obliged for the helping hand. :]


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## net-cat (Oct 13, 2007)

You're welcome.

Hmm. That almost seems more like the time to load the cache from main memory. (Main memory is quite slow compared to cache.) A program can be optimized to minimize cache misses using various methods. If a program is big enough or badly written enough, though, cache misses go up and the CPU has to spend a lot more time reading from main memory.

If you want to see something horribly in terms of cache, though, look up "Physical Address Extensions." (They use terms like "TLB shootdown" and "TLB clobber" when talking about it...)


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## Janglur (Oct 13, 2007)

No, the L2 cache is still much faster.  I'm not 100% sure what RAM timings are measured in, but I know access is a good ~20 slower than SRAM.


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## net-cat (Oct 13, 2007)

Right. Cache was implemented because processors got faster than memory. In order to prevent nasty wait states, they added cache. A program requests a virtual address, if it's in cache (hit), it uses the cached value. If it's not in cache (miss), it has to go get it from main memory, which that core basically has to stall until the fetch is complete. (The x86 architecture does cache in 4KB pages.)

DRAM timings are also generally done in clock cycles, but the memory clock is generally about a quarter or a half (or less, on older systems) of what the CPU clock is.


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## Janglur (Oct 13, 2007)

I know how cache works, dude.  I didn't go through college for nothing.  =D

I know that typically L1 and L2 use the cycles of the CPU Core, and older systems use 1/2 core or 1:1 to the FSB.  L3 typically uses FSB.

As for memory, i'm still unsure.  My RAM's timings are 2.0-3-2-6.  I'm unsure how something can be half a cycle, so the x.5 is confusing to me.  I think it may be something entirely different, especially since I know that 2.5ns memory is well over 400 MHz in the case of video cards.
It may be that cyclic timings and ns timings are apples and oranges and can't even be converted.


I'm a nerd, not a mathematician.  =D


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## yak (Oct 13, 2007)

CPU cache runs at the CPU clock speeds, which is why it is immensely expensive to produce.

Horrorshow, if you are not yet utterly confused by the discussion,
for a graphics station you should be looking forward to :

CPU: Core 2 Duo/Quad, and if you're on a budget, AMD x2. The more Mhzr, the faster your software will run.

RAM: No less then 2Gbytes of DDR2 RAM. Don't buy noname brands like PQI, go for Hynix or Samsung. ~40$ per gigabyte for Samsung, ~45$ for Xynix.

Video: external (not built in on the motherboard) video card. Doesn't have to be expensive, just make sure it supports the screen resolution & refresh rates you need. Something on the level of 70-100$ would do well. If you're also looking to play new games, rise the plank to 200$.

Motherboard: you'll probably have to get a new one as well, respective to the CPU you will buy (Intel/AMD), that supports DDR2 up to 800Mhz and SATA storage. I would not advise you to try and save some money here, the mobo is  the glue between all the parts you will buy - it has to be good. Something on the price level of 150-200$ for Intel, 120-160$ for AMD board will be fine.

PSU: all that junk you bought is going to need a steady source of power, so throw away the PSU that came with your rig and get something from Cheiftec or some other brand, 450-550 Watt . Avoid Tsunami and other cheap junk like hell. about 60-80$ will go towards it.

HDD: not at all important, you can reuse your already existing ones. But to give you an aproximate, i bought a 500GB Western Digital 500YS for 150$ last week.

---

The main things that are going to do all the work in your rig would be the CPU and the memory. The faster the first, and the more of the second the better.


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## net-cat (Oct 13, 2007)

Ah, memories. CMSC 411...

Well, DDR and DDR2 read on both the rising and falling edge of the clock. (That's why they call it Double Data Rate.)

I think some forms of Pentium 2 actually had off-chip L2 and had to run at half core.

EDIT: Also, cache is SRAM (transistors) and not DRAM (capacitors.)


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## Janglur (Oct 13, 2007)

yak said:
			
		

> The more Mhzr, the faster your software will run.




*Twitch*

That statement is so grossly inaccurate it's not funny.  If this were true, noone would have ever upgraded past the Pentium4 EE's.  Core2duo never would have been.  (Remember, the P4EE's went up to 3.6 GHz!)

There is FAR more than just 'megahertz' to dictate speed.  Cores, instruction sets, front-side-bus (FSB) especially, L1 and L2 cache, memory architecture, etc.



Also:
Never ignore the value of a fast HDD.  You can improve your PC's responsiveness drastically by upgrading to a faster HDD.  Bigger =/= faster, but they typically correlate between each other.  (More data density means the data, physically, passes by the read/write head faster.  Areal Density is an important consideration for transfer speed of a harddrive)  As a general rule, the faster the HDD's spindle speed (5400, 7200, 10,000 RPM) the faster it is overall.  Raptors and the new Perpindicular Recording drives are the top of the market for performance, raptors for spindle speed (10k RPM) and perps for sustained transfer (MB/s)
Spindle speed affects STR (Sustained Transfer Rate, aka MB/s) and especially Seek Time (9.8ms or whatever)
Seek time, when low, has the system react more speedily at loading fragmented or small files.  For example, loading Windows XP is more seek-time biased than STR.
STR is more size-biased.  It dictates how fast the system can load singular enormous files, or a large group of sequential files.  This has the most impact on gaming, and virtual memory*.  (* = Which you need not worry about at 2GB or RAM)



For video cards, MB =/= performance.  I'd reccomend the X1k series of ATI cards for a good balance between 'Doesn't roast itself' and 'Performs well', also fairly cheap.  Also, the 1850 and 1950 support true precision 32-bit FPUs.  In english, that means it is capable of more complex graphical rendering.  The GPU core can also act as a CPU, taking heat off your real CPU for the process.  nVidia hasn't implemented this architecture yet.  [For examples of it's use, look up Folding@Home's GPU core.  It simulates protein folding on the GPU with similar accuracy to the work a CPU did until then!  No client exists for nVidia due to the architecture being 24-bit with nVidia.]
For all-out gaming, nVidia is a good choice.  However I find it lacking in performance for high-quality rendering such as with movies or animation.  If you're just doing 2d, then anything should be fine.
Judge speed by the model number rather than anything.  If you must look at anything, consider the core MHz and the memory MHz.  It will give an idea of the performance.  Also important are the number of pixel shaders/vertex shaders/etc.


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## net-cat (Oct 13, 2007)

I missed that. I think what was meant, though, was that within a specific line of chips, (Core 2's, for example,) in general more MHz is faster. (Which is not exactly true, but it mostly works.)


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## yak (Oct 13, 2007)

Janglur, 
have you ever tried to explain quantum physics to a philosopher? I tried, and it was a legendary failure. 

Even though horribly innacurate, my statement is still valid. A 2Ghz chip will run slower then a 3Ghz chip of the same CPU family and model, in any way you put it. I was not discussing cross-model or cross-family performance differences and gain/clock cycle, as it wasn't what the OP asked for.

They asked a question and expected an answer in simple terms. Yes, i can reference a ton of benchmarks and post walls of mathematical calculations together with it, but it still sums up to what i originally said - the more *determining characteristic*, the better your system will perform.


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## Janglur (Oct 13, 2007)

Edit:  To Net-Cat
Right.  But when you change cores, things get wonky.  Example:  The p4.  Folks would overclock the earlier P4s to match newer, and wonder why there was still such a gap.  Architecture makes a big difference.
Currently, SSE2 and SSE3 are a must, and 3SE3 (AKA SSE4 and SSSE3, by intel) may become rather useful soon.

Programs which use these specialized instruction chips will perform drastically faster.  For example:  A CPU can perform nearly 2x as much work in the same time when utilizing SSE2 as opposed to nothing.  Photoshop loves increased instruction sets.  And PS can be a real resource hog sometimes, depending on what you're doing.


for the most part, i'd say if you're doing 3d rendering, your concerns:

Video:  Get the best you can afford.  $200-300 should do you well.  PCI-Express x16 is an obvious must.

RAM:  More = better.  1 GB is the current sweet spot.  2GB for max performance.  More than 2GB may be a waste unless you plan on keeping the system a long time or are doing some hardcore stuff.  More than 8GB is generally overkill.

CPU:  Definitely want dual-core.  Beyond that, it's really just personal preferance than performance.  The difference between various dual-cores isn't very considerable.  Especially in gaming and rendering, unless it's a solid CPU-render... which I doubt.

HDD:  Anything Raptor or perpendicular.  If it's over 400GB, it's probably perp.  Perp adds a huge boost, and many argue it outstrips the 10k raptors even though it's 7.2k.  That's a debate for another time, though.  The HDD performance is a tertiary objective anyway, it isn't gonna make a huge impact, overall.

Anything Else:  Not really an issue.


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## Janglur (Oct 13, 2007)

yak said:
			
		

> Janglur,
> have you ever tried to explain quantum physics to a philosopher? I tried, and it was a legendary failure.
> 
> Even though horribly innacurate, my statement is still valid. A 2Ghz chip will run slower then a 3Ghz chip of the same CPU family and model, in any way you put it. I was not discussing cross-model or cross-family performance differences and gain/clock cycle, as it wasn't what the OP asked for.
> ...





You weren't around for RDRAM/Rambus, were you?  It was 1066 MHz when DDR was 400 MHz tops and DDR2 was only a legend.
Why did it suck drastically in comparison?



Right now, CPU cores are rather different.  You can't compare a 2.4 GHz X2 with a 2.4 GHz C2D using the same standards.  You can't even compare a C2D with a C2S on a per-core basis.  You can't even compare a WinsorEE with a Winsor!

I'm afraid that it's not as simple as 'needs more megahurtz' anymore.  If it was, we wouldn't even have the naming schema most stuff does.  Athlon 3000+!  Intel E6600!  It's that schema that gives you the idea of performance, even across platform.


For true measure, go first with the FSB, then with the instruction sets, then with the core, then with the cache.  In that order.  It won't lead you nearly as far wrong as just core.  Especially since in today's computers, the core isn't as heavily depended on as they once were.  The memory access and timings are far more paramount, as datasets make the leap from a couple MBs to a GB or two, the CPU spends more and more time fetching data from RAM and tertiary storage than ever before.


As for what the OP was asking for, i'm pretty sure they were asking a general 'What would be good'?  And 'what to know'?  Not a 'I'm looking at two CPUs of the same make/model, but slightly different.  Which is better?'
Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, Horrorshow.  I just don't recall you stating any specific CPU or even company.


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## net-cat (Oct 13, 2007)

Argh, Photoshop. The only program that's ever caused my new system to run out of RAM. (I've got 4GB...)


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## yak (Oct 13, 2007)

The point is that if you have enough RAM, you would never have to swap to disk, which renders faster hard drives a moot point when estimating system performance. 40$ per gigabyte, 85$ per two and with 4 RAM slots on your mobo, 8Gig does not seem all that expensive any more. 
I honestly can't think of any everyday userspace application that would be bottlenecked mainly by slow hard drives, given that RAM is plentiful and the CPU is fast.


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## Janglur (Oct 13, 2007)

Except the system can't boot from RAM.  And many programs, PS especially, use VM despite memory quantity.  PS also can be set to use a scratch disk rather than VM, for just this purpose.  It's very common and popular.

I can name a lot the HDD bottlenecks.  Second Life (due to excessive VM use you can't disable), Doom3 (See below for a story), SimCity4, Postal2 (drastically), Photoshop, and several professional graphics rendering programs.  Because your video plus RAM combined can't cache 24 GB of textures.


* Story:  I wanted to play Doom3 on better than 'shit' settings.  My FPS was a primary consideration as I become rather disgruntled at below 30FPS.  I upgraded from a Radeon 7k to a 9800.  A nice ~40% improvement.  Then my CPU from a 1.2 GHz TBird (OC'd to 1333) to a 400 MHz FSB Barton.  ~15% or so.  Then ram from 512 MB PC1600 to 768 MB PC3200.  ~20% or so.  Then because i'd had money left and already rigged things crazy, I got a 10k RPM Raptor.  The level-load times were cut to 1/5 their previous.  FPS was up ~5% or so.  It made a much more drastic difference than I ever could have imagined.  Not to mention Windows went from ~30 seconds boot to 7.  An enormously delicious improvement.  Virus scans, windows boot, defrags, and anything that uses excessive VM use, all improved.  Never, EVER underestimate the HDD's impact!  IT IS the slowest device in the entire system, so it has a rather considerable cascading effects upwards!


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## Janglur (Oct 13, 2007)

Also, currently i'm running barely anything.  No games.  I can give a list if you so desire.

Windows, by default, uses VM.  Programs, by default, demand VM.


With no heavy programs running (worst is using 30 MB RAM, and is a windows function!  LOL)
Total RAM used:  490 MB.  Total RAM:  2 GB
VM used:  447 MB.  Total VM:  2.8 GB.  (Split across a raptor, 2xRaptorRAID0, and 7.2k Maxtor)


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## yak (Oct 13, 2007)

Janglur, i'll answer that.
RAMBus sucked because it was closed standard, and there were some shady things being done about it, on top of being very expensive to produce. From what i know, the patent was not legally obtained, and the standard did not meet it's stated specifications. In other words, it was going to be used to rip consumers off, and that was not allowed to happen.

As for the other part, this is silly.
Athlon 64 X2 4200 is  slower then Athlon 64 X2 4000, Core2 Duo 4400 is slower then Core2 Duo 4500.  That's all i'm saying - look at and compare the determining values.


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## Janglur (Oct 13, 2007)

I have, Yak.  Many times.

However, notice that the number after Athlon 64 X2, and after Core2Duo, aren't always the same core.  That's why that number is there:  To give you an idea of where it stands.

I have a CPU with a 2.4 GHz core and 1000 MHz FSB.  However, it is slower than a dual-core with 2.0 GHz core and 800 MHz FSB.  How?
(Hint:  Venice versus X2)


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## yak (Oct 13, 2007)

Janglur said:
			
		

> Except the system can't boot from RAM.


Booting every five minutes is not a necessary step in working with graphical programs.



			
				Janglur said:
			
		

> And many programs, PS especially, use VM despite memory quantity.  PS also can be set to use a scratch disk rather than VM, for just this purpose.  It's very common and popular.


Or it can be set to do otherwise, saving you the hard drive latency.




			
				Janglur said:
			
		

> I can name a lot the HDD bottlenecks.  Second Life (due to excessive VM use you can't disable), Doom3 (See below for a story), SimCity4, Postal2 (drastically), Photoshop, and several professional graphics rendering programs.  Because your video plus RAM combined can't cache 24 GB of textures.


Cheapest Core2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and Radeon 1950PRO, on aP5B deluxe board. BAD sector ridden WD 120GB HDD with a punctured hole the width of 2 matchsticks in it's size. I ran all of what you has mentioned, and never did i experience 
any bottlenecks. 
_Theoretically_, the performance of those games is limited by the hard drive performance, but i hardly care if it makes my FPS 5 units less when i have them over 80, and a load time of 1 second more when the level loads in 3.



			
				Jangulr said:
			
		

> * Story:  I wanted to play Doom3 on better than 'shit' settings.  My FPS was a primary consideration as I become rather disgruntled at below 30FPS.  I upgraded from a Radeon 7k to a 9800.  A nice ~40% improvement.  Then my CPU from a 1.2 GHz TBird (OC'd to 1333) to a 400 MHz FSB Barton.  ~15% or so.  Then ram from 512 MB PC1600 to 768 MB PC3200.  ~20% or so.  Then because i'd had money left and already rigged things crazy, I got a 10k RPM Raptor.  The level-load times were cut to 1/5 their previous.  FPS was up ~5% or so.  It made a much more drastic difference than I ever could have imagined.  Not to mention Windows went from ~30 seconds boot to 7.  An enormously delicious improvement.  Virus scans, windows boot, defrags, and anything that uses excessive VM use, all improved.  Never, EVER underestimate the HDD's impact!  IT IS the slowest device in the entire system, so it has a rather considerable cascading effects upwards!


The thing here is, that neither level loading, defragmenting, booting nor virus scanning is something you do every five minutes, and it is an essential part of what you are doing. 
If you are upgrading your hardware to make those tasks run faster, when it doesn't affect the primary tasks that you do, then i can hardly call that reasonable and will deem it as a waste of money that would rather go to buying another 2GB of RAM for your rig.


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## yak (Oct 13, 2007)

Janglur said:
			
		

> I have, Yak.  Many times.
> 
> However, notice that the number after Athlon 64 X2, and after Core2Duo, aren't always the same core.  That's why that number is there:  To give you an idea of where it stands.
> 
> ...



*sigh*


			
				yak said:
			
		

> A 2Ghz chip will run slower then a 3Ghz chip of the same CPU family and model, in any way you put it. _I was not discussing cross-model or cross-family performance differences and gain/clock cycle_, as it wasn't what the OP asked for


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## Janglur (Oct 13, 2007)

So then, Yak, you're the one off-topic.

He wasn't asking to compare any two processors of the same model and family.  He was asking, in general, good ideas.



And if HDD performance is so irrelevent, how come they keep pushing to make them faster instead of just bigger?  Why did they invent RAID0 or any other performance non-redundancy architecture (such as intel's Matrix)?

Finally, my system does a scan at 4am every morning.  I have 120 GB of stuff to scan.  It slows down considerably from the two RAID0 raptors to the solo raptor, and drastically even further with the 7.2k maxtor.  Explain.
The scan typically lasts until 6am, about half of which is the maxtor.


I'm sorry, but your 'facts' don't line up with the market and manufacturers, enthusiasts, overclockers, personal experience, or credible gaming and PC review sites.  I'm forced to conclude you are wrong.

HDDs do impact performance.  You do access the HDD frequently.  Faster HDDs do speed the PC up.




You still haven't pointed out a fix to the VM issue.  Most programs require a VM to function, and most do use it.  Some use mroe VM than RAM.  The data is moved to and from VM frequently (more than twice a minute).  There is no way to change this behavior through the program itself, nor disabling VM without causing many programs to cease functioning.  Furthermore, it consumes a large amount of RAM, which is better suited to rapid access (more than 3 times a second) and a much more expensive and valuable commodity that is finding more and more use with each passing day of software advancement.  Thus making it, unlike an HDD, a commodity you can't just waste.  This is why programs demand VM:  It uses the VM for data that is frequently accessed enough not to be a static HDD file, but infrequently enough that caching it into RAM would be wasteful and overly resource intensive.

Find me 24 GB of RAM that is cheaper than 24 GB of HDD space, and i'll give you credit.  Else, try s'more.


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## Janglur (Oct 13, 2007)

yak said:
			
		

> A 2Ghz chip will run slower then a 3Ghz chip of the same CPU family and model, in any way you put it. _I was not discussing cross-model or cross-family performance differences and gain/clock cycle_, as it wasn't what the OP asked for





			
				Janglur said:
			
		

> As for what the OP was asking for, i'm pretty sure they were asking a general 'What would be good'?  And 'what to know'?  Not a 'I'm looking at two CPUs of the same make/model, but slightly different.  Which is better?'
> Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, Horrorshow.  I just don't recall you stating any specific CPU or even company.


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## Eevee (Oct 13, 2007)

hey

grats you beat off to hardware

nobody cares, stop nitpicking and fucking up someone else's thread


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## dave hyena (Oct 14, 2007)

Let's not have any attacks or heated language. We'll keep clam.


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## Janglur (Oct 14, 2007)

Mmm...
Clams...


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