CPU speed comparison

I have an intel pentium 4 3GHz and a friend has an Intel Core 2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86GHz. I was wondering whether it would be worthwhile to change the cpu with that of my friend. Is there a way to check and compare speeds?

 

For tasks that are single threaded (which is most), your cpu is actually faster overall than the Core2 your friend has. I would not make the switch.

 

Actually, the Core 2 CPU may be faster in all scenarios since it's a newer model than the P4 processor.

However, you can't just swap the CPUs out because the pin patterns are probably different. We'd need to know all about the hardware of both your system and your friend's.

 

That depends on the software and operating system used. Newer model has little to do with it unless close in speed. Number of cores and speed does. We need motherboard specifics.

Completely correct about socket/pins. The motherboard socket and chipset must support the Core 2.

 

I did say 'all' and maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the Core 2 was the series that propelled Intel ahead of AMD once again. The Core 2 was a huge step up from Pentium 4 processors. In most of the benchmarks in Tom's Hardware's 2007 CPU charts, the Core 2 Duos pretty much beat out all of the Pentium 4s (except for the Extreme Editions, but those processors probably cost 10x the amount of the regular P4s, used a ton of power and ran much hotter)

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2007/benchmarks,14.html

 

No doubt! Better performance, less power consumption, and less generated heat. And Intel has vowed to never be spanked like that again. As long as AMD keeps nipping at the heels of Intel, consumers will continue to have newer, better CPUs to choose from - a definite win for consumers.