CPU clock speed

[woot7800GT]

Sure, It's probably been discussed before, but does clock speed in a CPU really matter much? Like a P4 3.4 vs. an Athlon64 2.4? I know the Athlon would probably be a tad better. My friend explained it too me like this: 64's process more info in a longer period of time wheras P4's process less info in a shorter period. Is this an accurated assessment?

 

[diabloII]

huh?

wha...

 

[desiboi]

WHat are you drunk?

 

[woot7800GT]

CLOCK SPEED... P4 3.4 VS. AMD64 2.4. Why is the AMD better even with the lower clock speed?

 

[diabloII]

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

 

[Nubius]

because AMD's get more done per clock cycle simple as that.

For analogy reasons lets pretend for a moment.....AMD gets 2 instructions done per cycle, Intel gets 1 done...therefore the AMD could be 2GHz while the Intel is 4GHz and still do as much

EDIT: Diablo the memory bandwidth has nothing to do with the clock speeds in this case and what his question is about

 

[woot7800GT]

Yeah, see, my friend is not an idiot.
I get it.

 

[Chankama]

The clock speed matters. And so does the number of instructions per cycle. Ultimately, what really matters is "the number of instructions per second".

Number of ins. per second = instructions per cycle x cycles per second

The number in GHz we are familiar with gives half the story. This number is just the "cycles per second". You need the "instructions per cycle" number to calculate the ultimate performance number - "number of instructions per second".. Of course, this depends on your notion of what an "instruction" is also.

 

[desiboi]

My celery does one per cycle.

 

[Chankama]

Yeah, see, my friend is not an idiot.
I get it.

I don't know about that. If someone told me this sentence.

"64's process more info in a longer period of time wheras P4's process less info in a shorter period"

I'd say.. "ya think????!!".. If we are talking about just one item even, obviously, given "more time", it would process "more".. And given "less time", it would process "less"..