![]()
![]()
Recent Articles
AMD Phenom CPU Comparison - Looking and the whole range of Phenom CPU's from AMD. From the Dual core right up to the Six core processors.
Motorola Xoom tablet computer - The first of the Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) based tablet computers i-Pad killer or does apple hold all the Aces?.
3D gaming for the PC - 3D isn't just for the movies its for great games on the PC as well.
Kingston Wi-Drive - Expand the capacity of your i-device with this mobile Wi-Fi drive in 16Gb and 32Gb.
CPU Comparison
CPU's or Processors are the main brain of your PC, the technology that powers them is getting better all the time and so more CPUs are hitting the market, faster, smarter and more efficient than the last batch. While the pace is not quite that of the graphics card market CPU technology is still moving fast. This is the second CPU comparison table we have produced at PantherProducts. The idea is simply compare the technology of the latest CPU's so you can see how they are advancing. Those of you that work with computers will probably know that figures are not the be all and end all when it comes to measuring performance but it does give a starting point to work from. Not all CPU's work in the same way either. The differences between the two main CPU manufacturers are great. Their CPU's are not interchangeable which shows the differences in the way they work. The table below allows you to compare the basic specs of the CPU's
Get Prices on the Latest CPU's
| CPU | Bus Speed | L1 Cache | L2 Cache | Transistors | Form Factor | Voltage | Price |
| AMD Athlon 64 | 800Mhz | 128K | 512K / 1Mb | 105.9 million | 754-pin | 1.5v | Prices |
| AMD Mobile 64 | 400Mhz | 128K | 1Mb | 105.9 million | 754-pin | ? | |
| AMD Athlon 64 FX | 800Mhz | 128K | 1Mb | 105.9 million | 939 / 940 pin | 1.5v | Prices |
| AMD Athlon 64 X2 | 800Mhz | 2 x 128K | 2 x 512K / 1Mb | 230 million | 939 pin | 1.5v | Prices |
| AMD Opteron | 666Mhz | 128K | 1Mb | 105.9 million | 940 pin | 1.55v | Prices |
| AMD Sempron | 666Mhz | 128K | 256K | 37.5 million | Socket A | 1.65V | Prices |
| AMD Sempron 3100+ | 800Mhz | 128K | 256K | 68.5 million | Socket 754 | 1.5v | |
| AMD Mobile Sempron | 333Mhz | 128K | 256K | - | Socket 754 | 1.4v | |
| Intel Celeron D (Prescott) |
533Mhz | 32k | 256K | 125 million | Socket 478 | 1.4v Max | Prices |
| Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition | 800 / 1066Mhz | 20K | 512K + 2Mb L3 Cache | 230 million | Socket 478 | 1.55v | Prices |
| Intel Itanium 2 | 400 / 533Mhz | 32K | 256K + 1.5 / 3Mb L3 cache | 221 million | PAC-611 | - | Prices |
| Pentium D | 800Mhz | 2 x 32K | 2x 1mb / 2x 2mb | 230 million | LGA775 | 1.4v Max | Prices |
| Pentium M | 400 / 533Mhz | 32K | 2Mb | 77 million | - | 1.4 / 1.5v | |
| Intel Core Solo | 533 / 667Mhz | 32K | 2Mb | - | LGA775 | - | |
| Intel Core 2 Duo (Conroe) |
1066Mhz | 2 x 32K | 2Mb / 4Mb | 291 million | LGA775 | 1.36v Max | Prices |
| Intel Core 2 Quad (Kentfield) |
1333Mhz | 4 x 64K | 2 x 4Mb | - | LGA775 | 1.25v | Prices |
Like we said before the figures only tell you so much and when it comes to getting a new CPU for your machine a lot of other factors usually come into play such as motherboard and memory type. There is of course the aspect of Price. I would recommend using the links to check the prices as they do vary quite a lot between the different types and models numbers.
I think you might want a little more information on the CPU's. so the table below contains a few key notes on each of the CPU's in the list. Each new CPU has something new, something that little better than the last or that bit more efficient.
| CPU | Notes |
| AMD Athlon 64 | Welcome to the age of 64-bit processing. The Athlon64 CPU was the first CPU from AMD to offer true 64-bit6 processing marking the end of the 32-bit age. To take full advantage of 64-bit processing however you will require software that uses 64-bit as well. Microsoft will release a 64-bit version of Windows and Software developers will follow shortly after. Good news is the Athlon 64 is fully capable of processing in 32-bit mode as well so its fully backward compatible and you can buy one today with all of your current software. |
| AMD Mobile 64 | The AThlon64 is a powerful CPU and the transition to the mobile is not an easy one. Mobile CPU's require power saving features and well as heat reduction features. The solution from AMD is PowerNOW!. Click to go to AMD website where more information on PowerNOW! is available. |
| AMD Athlon 64 FX | With every release of technology there seems to be a second variety of each to temp those of us that want only the best. The release of the Athlon64 brought with it the release of the Athlon64 FX. The difference between the two CPU's was one thing. That is a dual memory controller. Providing a performance boost at a price the FX series of the Athlon64 proved popular with gamers mainly. |
| AMD Athlon64 X2 | CPU frequencies have been going crazy over the last couple of years. Powering past 3Ghz and then coming to a proverbial brick wall. Cooling techniques have not advanced enough to keep these power cpu's cool enough to work properly. Plus the complexity of the CPU's have become so advanced that the transistor count is getting too high. The solution to this is the Athlon64 X2. The X2 is a dual core processor. Having 2 lower speed CPU's to share the workload in one chip seems the obvious way to progress in the performance stakes. |
| AMD Opteron | The AMD Opteron is the Athlon64 for the server and workstation. Allowing for simultaneous 32-bit and 64-bit operations. The Opteron comes in 3 types the 100 series, 200 series and 800 series. The 100 series is for 1 way servers, the 200 series is for 2 way servers and the 800 series is for upto 8 way servers. |
| AMD Sempron | AMD Sempron replaced the Duron as the budget CPU on the AMD roadmap. The standard restriction applies to the Sempron as a budget chip and that is that the cache size is only 256K. Apart from the that the Sempron is essentially an Athlon XP. |
| AMD Sempron 3100+ | From the Model 3100+ the AMD Sempron moved form factor over to a socket 754 from socket A. This is the form factor of the original Athlon 64's. This particular Sempron is in fact based on the Paris core (Athlon64) but the Sempron version has no capabilities for 64-bit processing. This keeps the Semprons price down and keeps it in the budget sector of the market. You do however get the rest of the core improvements made when the Paris core was released. |
| AMD Mobile Sempron | The mobile version of the Sempron again offers the same performance of the desktop version but incorporates the PowerNOW! power saving technology to help extend battery life and keep the internal temperatures down inside the laptop computer. |
| Intel Celeron D (Prescott) |
The Celeron D was first manufactured using the Pentium 4's Prescott core. With the usual things missing for a Celeron CPU. The cache size of this CPU is of course reduced and the hyper threading technology is also missing. This is remember a budget processor and costs far less than the Pentiums that its derived from. Also a word of note, The Celeron D is not a Dual Core CPU like the Pentium D. |
| Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition | The Extreme Edition CPU's as you may well imagine are aimed at the high end gamer and the PC enthusiast. The main feature here is the ramped up front side bus speed of 1066Mhz which is huge. And the introduction of 2Mb on chip Level 3 cache. Yes that's right level 3 cache. You may not of heard of that before but its simple. A third layer of cache added to the CPU to increase performance like any other cache. 2mb of on chip cache is not only a massive amount but also is expensive and requires a lot of transistors. This is an expensive piece of kit. |
| Intel Itanium 2 | The Intel Itanium 2 is a server CPU taking over from the Xeon. The Itanium 2 takes onboard 64 bit processing using the IA-64 instruction set. There have been many varieties of the Intel Itanium 2 and many more to come take a look at Intel's website for more on the Itanium 2 |
| Pentium D | Like the Athlon 64 X2 the Pentium D is a dual core offering. Giving you 2 cores in one CPU, allowing for true multitasking and a massive performance increase under heavy loads. Best results are seem when the CPU is set a task and then you try and access a CPU heavy application. The dual core system is easily the best solution for these situations. |
| Pentium M | Part of the Intel Centrino mobile technology the Pentium M like the other mobile CPU's offers power saving features to ensure longer battery life without compromising system performance. Intel uses Speed Step technology to lower the power usage depending on the load on the system. The Pentium M is also capable of lowering the operating voltage of the CPU again depending on the load on the CPU. |
| Intel Core Solo | The Core Solo mobile processor is the same design and physically the same CPU as the core 2 duo but one of the cores is disabled making it a single core CPU. There are 2 reasons Intel will do this firstly some core 2 products will have a defect in one but not both of the cores, instead of simply throwing this away Intel can sell this a perfectly working single core product. The other is that it would be cheaper for them to simply disable one core and sell the chip cheaper than it would be to manufacture a whole new product line. |
| Intel Core 2 Duo (Conroe) |
Intel moved away from the Pentium branding of its processors and has moved on to what they simply call Core. The Core 2 is a family of these new processors and the Core 2 Duo is a member of that family, get all that? Intel's Core 2 duo as the name might suggest is a dual core processor. The Core 2 duo has separate L1 cache for each core, but shares the L2 cache between the cores so that each core can use the same data and there is no reason for it to be duplicated. Core 2 Duo's come with either 2Mb or 4Mb of Level 2 Cache. |
| Intel Core 2 Quad (Kentsfield) |
No surprises here, this is indeed a four core CPU. Basically put Intel has packaged 2 Core 2 Duo's inside one package giving you a whopping 4 cores on a single CPU. Each core has its own Level 1 cache but as the Core 2 Duo shares Level 2 cache, the Core 2 Quad shares the Level 2 cache as such. Cores 1 and 2 will share 4Mb of cache, then Cores 3 and 4 will share a separate 4Mb of Level 2 cache. |
