CPU's, what's the difference...

Hey, well I've been looking at CPU's on ebuyer, and I couldn't help but notice the price and speed of this processor:

Intel Pentium 4 651 3.4GHz 800FSB Socket 775 2MB L2 Cache OEM Processor
£64.61 inc vat
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142969

Compared to this one:

Intel Core i7 940 2.93GHz Socket 1366 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor
£459.87 inc vat
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151478

I'm not great with the parts of a PC, but I know a bit; the first one is faster and cheaper, yet the second is a tad slower yet more expensive... how come? Has it something to do with the OEM thing? I also see that the Level 2 cache is less, but still. I thought maybe it's because there's no heatsink or fan, but they're cheap too.

Could somebody clear up why it's cheaper and faster... thanks!

Pentium 4 is far outdated now, the Core i7 runs on far better technology to put it in simpler terms.

Righto, but the price difference for what you get... I don't understand why.

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Originally Posted by Hitman

Righto, but the price difference for what you get... I don't understand why.

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It's not always to do with the clock speed, the i7 is faster basically.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hitman

Hey, well I've been looking at CPU's on ebuyer, and I couldn't help but notice the price and speed of this processor:

Intel Pentium 4 651 3.4GHz 800FSB Socket 775 2MB L2 Cache OEM Processor
£64.61 inc vat
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142969

Compared to this one:

Intel Core i7 940 2.93GHz Socket 1366 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor
£459.87 inc vat
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151478

I'm not great with the parts of a PC, but I know a bit; the first one is faster and cheaper, yet the second is a tad slower yet more expensive... how come? Has it something to do with the OEM thing? I also see that the Level 2 cache is less, but still. I thought maybe it's because there's no heatsink or fan, but they're cheap too.

Could somebody clear up why it's cheaper and faster... thanks!

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a) The core i7 is quad core (so in essence, 4 * 2.93GHz)
b) Pentium 4s get very hot and generally aren't very good (considering you could get a much better performing AMD CPU for a similar price)
c) The i7 is much more efficient than a P4. That means it can do more processing with each GHz frequency it has. As a model, for instance, say the P4 could do 2 calculations per Hz, the i7 may be able to do 3 calculations per Hz. Therefore, in this model a single 2GHz i7 core would be as fast as a 3GHz P4 core. You can't really compare them like that though which is why it's just a model.

An i7 at say 1.8GHz will outperform that P4.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up guys. I never knew that, always just thought it was the clock speed that mattered.

Thanks again!

Also the i7 supports a faster FSB and DDR3 RAM.