What gives the core 3. Test: How many cores do you need for games

Good afternoon, dear readers of our technoblog. Today we do not have a review, but a kind of comparison, which processor is better 2 core or 4 core? I wonder who shows himself cooler in 2018? Then let's get started. Let's say right away that in most cases the palm will go to a device with a large number of physical modules, but chips with 2 cores are not as simple as they seem at first glance.

Many have probably already guessed that we will consider all current representatives from Intel of the Pentium Coffee Lake family and the popular “hyperstump” G4560 (Kaby Lake). How relevant are the models this year and is it worth considering buying more productive AMD Ryzen or the same Core i3 with 4 cores.

The AMD Godavari and Bristol Ridge family is deliberately not considered for one simple reason - it has no further potential, and the platform itself turned out to be not the most successful, as it could be expected.

Often these solutions are bought either out of ignorance, or “for change” as some kind of the cheapest assembly for the Internet and online movies. But we are not particularly happy with this state of affairs.

Differences between 2-core and 4-core chips

Consider the main points that distinguish the first category of chips from the second. At the hardware level, you can see that only the number of computing units differs. In other cases, the cores are united by a high-speed data exchange bus, a common memory controller for fruitful and efficient work with RAM.

Often, the L1 cache of each core is an individual value, but L2 can be either the same for all, or also individual for each block. However, in this case, the L3 cache is additionally used.

In theory, 4-core solutions should be 2 times faster and more powerful, since they perform 100% more operations per clock (we will take identical frequency, cache, manufacturing process and all other parameters as a basis). But in practice, the situation changes completely non-linearly.

But here it is worth paying tribute: in multithreading, the whole essence of 4 cores is fully revealed.

Why are dual core processors still popular?

If you look at the mobile segment of electronics, you can see the dominance of 6-8 nuclear chips, which look as organic as possible and are loaded in parallel when performing all tasks. Why is that? Android and iOS operating systems are quite young systems with a high level of competition, and therefore the optimization of each application is the key to success in device sales.

With the PC industry, the situation is different, and here's why:

Compatibility. When developing any software, developers strive to please both new and old audiences with weak hardware. More emphasis is placed on 2-core processors at the expense of 8-core support.

Parallelization of tasks. Despite the dominance of technology in 2018, getting a program to work with multiple CPU cores and threads in parallel is still not easy. If it comes to calculating several completely different applications, then there are no questions, but when it comes to calculations within one program, it’s already worse: you have to regularly calculate completely different information, while not forgetting about the success of tasks and the absence of errors in calculations.

In games, the situation is even more interesting, since it is almost impossible to divide the volumes of information into equal “shares”. As a result, we get the following picture: one computing unit is 100% oiled, the remaining 3 are waiting for their turn.

Continuity. Each new solution is based on previous developments. Writing code from scratch is not only expensive, but also often unprofitable for the development center, because "this is enough for people, and users of 2-core chips are still the lion's share."

Take for example many cult projects like Lineage 2, AION, World of Tanks. All of them were created on the basis of ancient engines that can adequately load only one physical core, and therefore only the chip frequency plays the main role in calculations.
Financing. Not everyone can afford to create a completely new product, designed not for 4.8, 16 threads. It is too expensive, and in most cases unjustified. Take for example the same cult GTA V, which will “eat” both 12 and 16 threads without any problems, not to mention the cores.

The cost of its development has exceeded a good 200 million dollars, which in itself is already very expensive. Yes, the game was a success, because Rockstar's credibility among the players was huge. What if it was a young startup? Here you already understand everything.

Are multi-core processors necessary?

Let's look at the situation from the point of view of a simple layman. Most users are satisfied with 2 cores for the following reasons:

• low needs;
• most applications work stably;
• games are not a top priority;
• low assembly cost;
• processors themselves are cheap;
• the majority buys ready-made solutions;
• some users have no idea what they are selling in stores and feel great.

Is it possible to play on 2 cores? Yes, no problem, which the Intel Core i3 line up to the 7th generation proved with success for several years. Also very popular were Pentium Kaby Lake, which for the first time in history introduced support for Hyper Threading.
Is it worth it now to buy 2 cores, albeit with 4 threads? Exclusively for office tasks. The era of these chips is gradually fading, and manufacturers have begun to massively switch to 4 full-fledged physical cores, and therefore you should not consider the same Pentium and Core i3 Kaby Lake in the long term. AMD has completely abandoned 2-cores.

Since a significant part of project visitors is the gaming community (thank you, otstrel.ru ;-)) I often get questions by mail related to performance, characteristics and configurations of computers, components and everything else. A relatively common question among others: "What is more important for games - multi-core processor or its clock speed?". What in general, in fact, is the frequency, and what are the many cores and what role does all this play?

In this article, I will try to answer these questions for you, as well as tell you about the basic principles of processor operation in accessible words.

About the number of cores and processor frequency

It is impossible to say unequivocally what is more important, the frequency or the number of cores. These things are too different. The fact is that the frequency of the processor is the number of operations per second. The higher the frequency, the more actions the processor takes in one pass. It's like with shipping: the faster you drive, the sooner you will bring the goods to their destination. There are no other options. If we take two identical processors, but with different frequencies, then we can guarantee that the one with the higher frequency will be faster.

Multi-core is more difficult. Two cores can calculate several tasks at the same time. And ideally, they will work much faster than a single-core solution. But here it all depends on the program or game itself: can it divide the task into several simple actions and load both cores with them? For ease of understanding, let's return to the example of the transportation of goods. If you have two trucks, they can carry twice as much cargo. But this is only on condition that the cargo can be divided into parts. But what if it is, say, an already assembled car, which cannot be disassembled and cannot be cut in half? Then only one truck will go with the load, and the second one will stand idle and do nothing useful. Same with processors. If the program cannot break the task into parts, then only one core will work and the speed will depend only on its frequency.

In addition to frequencies and the number of cores, there is another important factor - the architecture of the processor. Actually, this is how the processor operates on the received data. Take, again, our goods. For example, one driver knows the road better than another and imagines where you can cut the path, and therefore comes to the place faster than his companion. It's the same with processors. The more rationally its resources are used, the faster it will work. That is why, for example, Intel processors under the same conditions often turn out to be faster than AMD solutions.

Now, understanding what the main characteristics of the processor affect, we can talk about which of them is more important for you. Multi-core helps when converting video, working with audio, rendering pictures in 3DS Max, etc. These are simple processes that can always be divided into components and put together after calculation. With games, everything is much more complicated, as you get there. Some of the developers are engaged in parallelization of tasks in the game code, but some are not. But the trend "more cores - faster game" is still visible. This is clearly seen when comparing old games with new ones. For example, Crysis, a three-year-old game, runs significantly faster on a 4.5GHz dual-core processor than on a 2.6GHz quad-core one. However, do not take off and run for a quad-core processor. Before buying, you need to consider many other factors, the main of which is the video card. In games, processors are only revealed when graphics are processed by a powerful card, for example, the GTX 480 or the Radeon HD5870. If something budgetary is responsible for the graphics, then you can simply not feel the difference between the same Core i3 and Core i7, because the performance in this case will rest on the video card.

Afterword

Here are the things. I hope that this article was useful for you and answered your questions. However, even if not for everything, then ask in the comments - I will be happy to answer to the best of my ability and ability.

PS: For the existence of this article, a special thanks to the computer-game magazine "Igromania".

sonikelf.com

What is a central processing unit?

Probably, every user who is little familiar with a computer has come across a bunch of incomprehensible characteristics when choosing a central processor: process technology, cache, socket; sought advice from friends and acquaintances competent in the matter of computer hardware. Let's look at the variety of all possible parameters, because the processor is the most important part of your PC, and understanding its characteristics will give you confidence in the purchase and further use.

CPU

The processor of a personal computer is a microcircuit that is responsible for performing any operations with data and controls peripheral devices. It is contained in a special silicon case called a crystal. For a short designation, the abbreviation is used - CPU (central processing unit) or CPU (from the English Central Processing Unit - central processing unit). In today's computer component market, there are two competing corporations, Intel and AMD, which are constantly involved in the race for the performance of new processors, constantly improving the technological process.

Process technology

The manufacturing process is the size used in the manufacture of processors. It determines the size of the transistor, the unit of which is nm (nanometer). Transistors, in turn, form the internal basis of the CPU. The bottom line is that continuous improvement in manufacturing techniques allows you to reduce the size of these components. As a result, much more of them are placed on the processor chip. This helps to improve the performance of the CPU, so the process technology used is always indicated in its parameters. For example, the Intel Core i5-760 is made according to the 45 nm process technology, and the Intel Core i5-2500K at 32 nm, based on this information, one can judge how modern the processor is and outperforms its predecessor in performance, but when choosing, you need to take into account a number of other options.

Architecture

Also, processors are characterized by such a characteristic as architecture - a set of properties inherent in a whole family of processors, as a rule, produced for many years. In other words, the architecture is their organization or the internal design of the CPU.

Number of Cores

The core is the most important element of the central processing unit. It is a part of the processor capable of executing a single instruction stream. The cores differ in cache size, bus frequency, manufacturing technology, etc. Manufacturers assign new names to them with each subsequent technical process (for example, the AMD processor core is Zambezi, and Intel is Lynnfield). With the development of processor manufacturing technologies, it became possible to place more than one core in one case, which significantly increases CPU performance and helps to perform multiple tasks simultaneously, as well as use multiple cores in programs. Multi-core processors will be able to handle archiving, video decoding, modern video games, and more faster. For example, Intel's Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processor lines, which use dual-core and quad-core CPUs, respectively. At the moment, processors with 2, 3, 4 and 6 cores are widely available. Most of them are used in server solutions and are not required by an ordinary PC user.

Frequency

In addition to the number of cores, clock speed also affects performance. The value of this characteristic reflects the performance of the CPU in the number of cycles (operations) per second. Another important characteristic is the bus frequency (FSB - Front Side Bus), which shows the speed at which data is exchanged between the processor and the computer's peripherals. The clock frequency is proportional to the bus frequency.

socket

In order for the future processor to be upgraded compatible with the existing motherboard, you need to know its socket. A socket is a socket in which a CPU is installed on a computer motherboard. The socket type is characterized by the number of pins and the processor manufacturer. Different sockets correspond to certain types of CPU, so each socket accepts a certain type of processor. Intel uses the LGA1156, LGA1366, and LGA1155 socket, while AMD uses AM2+ and AM3.

Cache

Cache - the amount of memory with a very high access speed, necessary to speed up access to data that is constantly in memory with a lower access speed (RAM). When choosing a processor, keep in mind that increasing the size of the cache improves the performance of most applications. The cache of the central processor differs in three levels (L1, L2 and L3), located directly on the processor core. Data from RAM gets into it for higher processing speed. It is also worth considering that for multi-core CPUs, the amount of L1 cache for one core is indicated. The second-level cache performs similar functions, differing in lower speed and larger volume. If you intend to use the processor for resource-intensive tasks, then a model with a large amount of second-level cache will be preferable, given that the total amount of L2 cache is indicated for multi-core processors. The most powerful processors such as AMD Phenom, AMD Phenom II, Intel Core i3, Intel Core i5, Intel Core i7, Intel Xeon are equipped with L3 cache. The third level cache is the least fast, but it can be up to 30 MB.

Energy consumption

The power consumption of the processor is closely related to the technology of its production. With a decrease in the nanometers of the process technology, an increase in the number of transistors and an increase in the clock frequency of processors, there is an increase in the power consumption of the CPU. For example, Intel's Core i7 processors require up to 130 or more watts. The voltage supplied to the core clearly characterizes the power consumption of the processor. This setting is especially important when choosing a CPU for use as a multimedia center. Modern processor models use various technologies that help combat excessive power consumption: built-in temperature sensors, automatic voltage and frequency control systems for processor cores, power-saving modes with low CPU load.

Additional features

Modern processors have acquired the ability to work in 2 and 3-channel modes with RAM, which significantly affects its performance, and also support a larger set of instructions, raising their functionality to a new level. GPUs process video on their own, thereby offloading the CPU, thanks to DXVA technology (from the English DirectX Video Acceleration - video acceleration by the DirectX component). Intel uses the aforementioned Turbo Boost technology to dynamically change the clock speed of the CPU. Speed ​​Step technology manages CPU power consumption based on processor activity, while Intel Virtualization Technology creates a virtual environment in hardware to run multiple operating systems. Also, modern processors can be divided into virtual cores using Hyper Threading technology. For example, a dual-core processor is able to split the clock speed of one core into two, which contributes to high processing performance with four virtual cores.

Thinking about the configuration of your future PC, do not forget about the video card and its GPU (from the English Graphics Processing Unit - graphic processing device) - the processor of your video card, which is responsible for rendering (arithmetic operations with geometric, physical objects, etc.). The higher the frequency of its core and the frequency of memory, the less will be the load on the central processor. Gamers should pay special attention to the GPU.

MediaPure.com

How to choose a processor?

The processor is one of the main and important components of modern PCs, laptops, netbooks and tablets designed to perform tasks received from various programs. More recently, when choosing a processor, buyers first paid attention to the manufacturer and clock speed. This situation has not changed at the present time, however, in addition to choosing one of the two global brands AMD and Intel, you should pay attention to other equally important processor indicators. So, let's try to answer such an important question - how to choose a processor? When choosing a processor, you need to consider the following main specifications: clock speed, cache, number of cores, heat dissipation, socket, bus frequency and technical process.

Specifications

Clock frequency

An important indicator that determines the number of operations that are performed by the processor per unit of time (per 1 second). The clock frequency is measured in GHz (GHz). For example, a processor with a frequency of 1.8 GHz is capable of processing 1 billion and 800 million operations in 1 second. This means the higher the frequency, the more powerful processor you will get. Therefore, we advise you to focus on this characteristic when choosing in the first place.

Cache

Cache is another important processor specification that determines the speed at which the microprocessor accesses RAM. Cache memory helps to improve processor performance by quickly processing the necessary data loaded from the cache, and not from the computer's RAM.

Cache memory can have three levels:

1. First level (L1). This is the most initial cache level, which has a small volume, but high speed. The size of the cache memory can be 8 - 128 KB.
2. Second level (L2). This is the average cache level, more voluminous and slower. The cache size is 128 KB - 12.28 MB.
3. Third level (L3). This is the last level of the cache, the slowest and most voluminous. The size of such memory is 0 KB - 16.38 MB. The third level of cache may be contained only in certain processor models, or may be completely absent.

Number of Cores

Despite the number of cores, some programs run faster with a conventional processor. If the development of the clock frequency has certain limits, then the increase in the number of processor cores occurs constantly. What determines the number of cores in a processor? It affects the performance of the PC as a whole, in other words, it shows how many programs can run simultaneously in a certain period of time. However, it is worth remembering that some programs can only target a specific number of cores, which means that if the processor has 2 cores, and the program uses only 1 core, then the other core will not be used. If you use a PC, laptop, netbook, as well as a tablet for work, study, and also for accessing the Internet, then a 2-core processor is enough. If you plan to install games on your computer or process large video and photo files, then choose 4-core or higher processors. Choose processors that are built on modern cores. They are more optimized and therefore work faster. In addition, they do not heat up and have other advantages.

Heat dissipation

The heat dissipation parameter determines the level of processor heating in operating condition, as well as the required cooling system. Units of measure for heat dissipation are W (watts). The heat dissipation index can be from 10 to 160 watts.

socket

This is a small connector designed to mount the processor in the motherboard. Therefore, when choosing a processor, be guided by this parameter. It must be identical to the motherboard socket.

Bus frequency

This is a speed indicator that determines the speed of information exchange with the video accelerator, RAM and peripheral equipment. In addition, you must consider bandwidth, which affects speed. The bus frequency units are GHz (GHz).

Technical process

This parameter shows the dimensions of the semiconductor elements that are part of the processor's internal circuits. The smaller the transistor connections used in the circuits, the more powerful the processor you will get. Unfortunately, this characteristic is not marked in price lists for ordinary consumers, so it should be checked separately with a sales assistant.

When choosing a processor, it is worth considering not only the main technical characteristics proposed by manufacturers, but also the results of tests conducted by independent experts. For example, the same processors may produce different test results using different types of workloads when running the same programs. To determine which processor will be the best option for you, you should decide for what purposes it will be used.

Processors for working home and office PCs, laptops and netbooks should be equipped with 2 cores, and also have a high clock speed. For gaming PCs, you should choose processors that have the most modern architecture, high-performance cache size, good clock speeds, and a large number of cores.

We sincerely hope that the information we have provided on how to choose a processor will help you make the right purchase!

viborok.ru

Multi-core processor or characteristic of the number of cores

At the beginning of the development of processors, all efforts to improve the performance of processors were directed towards increasing the clock frequency, but with the conquest of new peaks in the frequency indicators, it became more difficult to increase it, as this affected the increase in TDP of processors. Therefore, the developers began to grow processors in width, namely, to add cores, and the concept of multi-core arose.

Literally 6-7 years ago, multi-core processors were practically unheard of. No, multi-core processors from the same IBM company existed before, but the appearance of the first dual-core processor for desktop computers took place only in 2005, and this processor was called Pentium D. Also, in 2005, AMD's dual-core Opteron was released, but for server systems.

In this article, we will not delve into historical facts in detail, but will discuss modern multi-core processors as one of the characteristics of the CPU. And most importantly - we need to figure out what this multi-core gives in terms of performance for the processor and for you and me.

Increased performance with multi-core

The principle of increasing processor performance due to several cores is to split the execution of threads (various tasks) into several cores. In summary, almost every process running on your system has multiple threads.

I’ll make a reservation right away that the operating system can virtually create many threads for itself and do it all at the same time, even if the processor is physically single-core. This principle implements the same Windows multitasking (for example, listening to music and typing at the same time).

Let's take an antivirus program as an example. We will have one thread scanning the computer, the other - updating the anti-virus database (we have simplified everything in order to understand the general concept).

And consider what will happen in two different cases:

a) Single core processor. Since two threads are running at the same time, we need to create for the user (visually) this very simultaneity of execution. The operating system does it tricky: there is a switch between the execution of these two threads (these switches are instantaneous and time passes in milliseconds). That is, the system “performed” the update a little, then abruptly switched to scanning, then back to updating. Thus, for you and me, it seems that these two tasks are being carried out simultaneously. But what is being lost? Of course, performance. So let's look at the second option.

b) The processor is multi-core. In this case, this switch will not occur. The system will clearly send each thread to a separate core, which, as a result, will allow us to get rid of the switching from thread to thread that is detrimental to performance (let's idealize the situation). Two threads run simultaneously, this is the principle of multi-core and multi-threading. Ultimately, we will perform scans and updates much faster on a multi-core processor than on a single-core one. But there is a catch - not all programs support multi-core. Not every program can be optimized this way. And everything happens far from being as perfect as we have described. But every day, developers create more and more programs whose code is perfectly optimized for execution on multi-core processors.

Are multi-core processors necessary? Everyday reasonableness

When choosing a processor for a computer (namely, when thinking about the number of cores), you should determine the main types of tasks that it will perform.

To improve knowledge in the field of computer hardware, you can read the material about processor sockets.

The starting point can be called dual-core processors, since it makes no sense to return to single-core solutions. But dual-core processors are different. It may not be the "most" fresh Celeron, or it may be a Core i3 on Ivy Bridge, just like AMD - Sempron or Phenom II. Naturally, due to other indicators, their performance will be very different, so you need to look at everything in a complex way and compare multi-core with other characteristics of processors.

For example, the Core i3 on Ivy Bridge has Hyper-Treading technology, which allows you to process 4 threads simultaneously (the operating system sees 4 logical cores, instead of 2 physical ones). And the same Celeron does not boast of such.

But let's return directly to the reflections on the required tasks. If a computer is needed for office work and surfing the Internet, then a dual-core processor is enough for it.

When it comes to gaming performance, you need 4 cores or more to be comfortable in most games. But here the very catch pops up: not all games have optimized code for 4-core processors, and if they are optimized, it is not as efficient as we would like. But, in principle, for games now the optimal solution is precisely the 4th core processor.

Today, the same 8-core AMD processors are redundant for games, it is the number of cores that is redundant, but the performance is not up to par, but they have other advantages. These same 8 cores will help a lot in tasks where powerful work with a high-quality multi-threaded load is needed. This includes, for example, rendering (calculation) of video, or server computing. Therefore, for such tasks, 6, 8 or more cores are needed. And soon games will be able to load 8 or more cores with high quality, so in the future, everything is very rosy.

Do not forget that there are still a lot of tasks that create a single-threaded load. And you should ask yourself the question: do I need this 8-core or not?

Summing up a little, I would like to note once again that the advantages of multi-core are manifested during "heavy" computational multi-threaded work. And if you don’t play games with sky-high requirements and don’t do specific types of work that require good computing power, then spending money on expensive multi-core processors simply does not make sense (which processor is better for games?).

we-it.net

How to choose a laptop

In order to choose the right laptop, you need to determine how this device will be used. The fact is that exactly what software you plan to run on it determines which model you need to choose. If you do not analyze this in advance, you may either face the fact that you will be sorely lacking in the capabilities of the laptop, and you will not be able to use it for its intended purpose. You also run the risk of overpaying a large amount for those functions that you do not need at all.

How to find out the technical parameters of a laptop

The defining parameters of a laptop are its technical characteristics. You can find them in those passport of the device, which you can ask for from consultants in the store. You can also find out the necessary information from a special booklet placed next to the price tag. In online stores, this information is located in the description of each model.

Processor type and frequency

The processor is the main component of any device, which determines the speed of its operation and its power consumption. The main manufacturers in the PC market are well-known companies Intel and AMD. Intel processors are more expensive, but their products often turn out to be a real technological breakthrough in IT technology.

AMD processors are positioned as an inexpensive and economical solution. This manufacturer in the struggle for the market strives to maintain performance comparable to Intel products and low cost. Currently, improving the speed of processors goes along the path of increasing the number of cores, as well as optimizing their interaction.

The most common in laptops and netbooks currently are single- and dual-core processors. However, in recent years, six- and eight-core architectures, which were once installed only in desktop PCs, have become increasingly popular.

Number of processor cores

The main technical parameters of the processor are the number of cores, clock frequency, cache memory, bus frequency. Some time ago, the increase in processor performance was achieved by manufacturers by simply increasing the clock frequency, which led to their overheating. As a result, developers were forced to look for a new way to increase the power of devices, the solution was the use of multiple cores, which made it possible to increase system performance by executing several program streams simultaneously.

The benefits of multi-core processors are largely related to the software used. Older applications that are not designed for multi-core use the extra cores to a limited extent, so single-core processor performance may be better when running older programs. Modern applications are designed for use in devices with multi-core processors, and operating systems automatically distribute the load between the cores.

Processor Specifications

CPU clock speed is how fast the processor will perform certain calculations. This value is measured in gigahertz and directly affects its processing power. Nowadays, when all new processor models are multi-core, clock speed is not the main performance characteristic.

Cache memory - ultra-fast memory, the volume of which is from 1 to 8 MB. Located on the processor chip. A large amount of cache memory is needed to speed up the work of programs for video editing, games and watching movies.

System bus frequency - the number of cycles per second that the system bus and the main channel perform, necessary for data exchange between the processor with RAM and other devices.

RAM

When choosing a laptop, it is very important not to make a very common mistake that many inexperienced users make. This misconception is due to the fact that many consider RAM to be the main characteristic that determines the speed of a computer.

In fact, RAM will not be able to improve the speed of computer operations if other components do not allow it. For example, a powerful multi-core processor will be practically useless if installed in a device with 512 MB of RAM, while resource-intensive applications that require 4 GB of RAM will not be able to run on a weak processor.

Also, please note that RAM is a feature that can be upgraded, while the processor and motherboard cannot be replaced. Therefore, a good solution may be to purchase, for example, a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, but with a motherboard that allows you to increase it to 16 GB.

Please note that you should not buy a laptop with more than 4 GB of RAM if you are going to install 32-bit Windows XP and Windows Vista on it, as these operating systems simply will not "see" more memory.

Hard disk capacity

Currently, there are two types of hard drives that differ from each other in terms of internal storage technology - HDD and SDD. The hard disk drive (HDD) is the most common. Such disks are cheaper, but have a number of other disadvantages. Due to the fact that all information on them is stored in the form of magnetized cells and is read by a special movable head, the devices are very easily damaged as a result of falls or exposure to magnetic fields.

Solid state drives (SSDs) are based on flash memory technology. The same technology can be seen in USB flash drives. They are faster, more resistant to shock, and also completely silent due to the absence of moving parts in them. Installing the operating system on a hard drive will allow you to turn on the device in a few seconds. The maximum amount of SSD is currently inferior to HDD: 2 TB versus 512 GB.

Video card selection

Currently, the largest manufacturers of graphics controllers on the market are NVidia and AMD. These manufacturers are constantly competing with each other for leadership, so the question of whether to choose an NVidia or AMD video card is incorrect. Each of the companies periodically offers users new functional and productive products. Therefore, for comparison, it is necessary to analyze devices related to specific families of video cards.

If you are going to use a laptop to run modern 3D games on it, be sure to pay attention to the video card (a type of graphics controller) of the device. Currently, laptops can be found in two types of graphics controllers: built-in, when the controller is built into the processor, discrete, when the controller is a separate device. Some devices have both built-in and discrete controllers at once.

Main characteristics of video cards

The video card integrated into the system board of the computer uses the resources of the central processor unit and RAM to process graphics. Such a controller is much less powerful than an external one, but it also costs much less. If you're not going to use your laptop for 3D gaming, photo and video editing, and want to save on the cost, the integrated graphics controller is your choice. The built-in video card is quite capable of outputting non-resource-intensive games and even allows you to watch HD movies. It also allows you to run old games that did not use 3D graphics.

A discrete graphics system is characterized by the presence of its own processor, designed specifically for displaying graphic information. In addition, it has a separate RAM (video memory). Discrete memory is much more expensive and more powerful than built-in memory.

Weight and dimensions of the device

Depending on how you are going to use the laptop, you need to pay attention to its weight and dimensions. If you travel frequently and plan to take the device on your trips, then an important point for you will be how convenient it is to transport a laptop with you.

However, for the sake of more comfortable transportation, you will have to sacrifice the power of the device. A small device designed to be constantly transported has a screen diagonal of no more than 15 inches, weighs less than 2 kilograms, and has a matte surface that is difficult to scratch. For particularly frequent trips, where you do not plan to run games and resource-intensive applications, it will be much more profitable to purchase a netbook or even a tablet.

If you plan to use a laptop exclusively at home, then you should focus on the technical characteristics of the device, since its weight and dimensions will not play much importance for you.

Battery power and battery life

If you plan to use your laptop on trains and trains where there are no power outlets, then you just need to choose a model that works without recharging the maximum time.

When choosing a laptop for battery life, you need to carefully analyze all the information available. Often, the technical parameters declared by the manufacturer do not coincide with the test results at all. Therefore, if the battery life of a device is a very important characteristic of a device for you, read independent reviews of a laptop in computer magazines. In addition, useful information can be found on specialized forums.

How to increase laptop battery life

Several parameters affect the duration of work without recharging: processor power, battery capacity, battery capacity, display brightness, performance, use of additional devices. There are several ways to increase the duration of the device, but all of them are associated with various restrictions (reducing the brightness of the display, refusing to work with resource-intensive applications, disabling the network card or wireless adapters, etc.). But the easiest way to extend your laptop's battery life is to get a spare battery that you can just carry around with you.

The latest laptops use Intel's Speed-Step and AMD PowerNow! energy-saving technologies to regulate the processor's clock speed.

Removable drives

Despite the widespread use of the Internet and flash technologies, it is still more convenient to store some information on CDs and DVDs, the advantage of which is low cost and rewritability.

At the same time, many manufacturers refuse to use optical drives, as this allows to reduce the size and weight of the device. Therefore, ultraportable computers, as a rule, are not equipped with drives. However, if you plan to constantly install new games on your laptop and watch movies, you cannot do without using a DVD drive.

Operating system

As a rule, laptops are sold with operating systems pre-installed in them. The most common operating systems at present are systems of the Windows family: XP, Vista, 7, which are quite enough for the needs of most users. However, these systems require a license and therefore increase the cost of a laptop, so if you have the opportunity to purchase a laptop at a lower price with similar technical parameters, but an operating system that does not suit you, feel free to buy it, and you can install the desired OS yourself.

Apple laptops come with a proprietary Mac OS operating system and a set of all the necessary applications for work. In this case, you won't have to reinstall anything. Most often, users abandon systems based on Linux / Unix, which require more skills, are not suitable for running games, as well as a number of other applications.

In the early years of the new millennium, when CPU frequencies finally passed the 1 GHz mark, some companies (let's not point fingers at Intel) predicted that the new NetBurst architecture could reach speeds of the order of 10 GHz in the future. Enthusiasts were expecting a new era when CPU clock speeds would grow like mushrooms after rain. Need more performance? Just upgrade to a processor with a higher clock speed.

Newton's apple fell loudly on the heads of dreamers who saw megahertz as the easiest way to continue to increase PC performance. Physical limitations prevented the exponential increase in clock speed without a corresponding increase in heat dissipation, and other problems associated with manufacturing technologies also began to arise. Indeed, in recent years, the fastest processors operate at frequencies from 3 to 4 GHz.

Of course, progress cannot be stopped when people are willing to pay money for it - there are quite a few users who are ready to pay a considerable amount for a more powerful computer. Therefore, engineers began to look for other ways to increase performance, in particular, by increasing the efficiency of instruction execution, and not just relying on clock speed. Parallelism also turned out to be a solution - if you can't make a CPU faster, then why not add a second such processor to increase computing resources?

The Pentium EE 840 is the first dual-core CPU to hit the retail market.

The main problem with concurrency is that the software has to be specifically written to spread the load across multiple threads - meaning you don't get immediate bang for your buck, but frequency does. In 2005, when the first dual-core processors came out, they did not provide a significant performance boost, since desktop PCs used quite a bit of software that would support them. In fact, most dual-core CPUs were slower than single-core CPUs in most tasks because single-core CPUs ran at higher clock speeds.

However, four years have passed, and much has changed. Many software developers have optimized their products to take advantage of multiple cores. Single-core processors are already harder to find on sale today, and two-, three- and four-core CPUs are considered quite commonplace.

But the question arises: how many CPU cores do you really need? Is a triple-core processor enough for gaming, or is it better to pay extra and take a quad-core chip? Is a dual-core processor enough for the average user, or does more cores really make any difference? Which applications are optimized for multiple cores, and which ones will only respond to changes in specifications such as frequency or cache size?

We thought it was a good time to test applications from the updated package (though the update is not yet complete) on single, dual, triple and quad-core configurations to see how valuable multi-core processors have become in 2009.

To make the tests fair, we chose a quad-core processor - an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 overclocked to 2.7 GHz. After running tests on our system, we then disabled one of the cores, rebooted, and repeated the tests. We consistently disabled the cores and got results for a different number of active cores (from one to four), while the processor and its frequency did not change.

Disabling CPU cores under Windows is very easy to do. If you want to know how to do this, then type "msconfig" in the Windows Vista "Start Search" window and press "Enter". This will open the System Configuration utility.

In it, go to the "Boot" tab and press the "Advanced options" key.

This will bring up the BOOT Advanced Options window. Select the "Number of Processors" checkbox and specify the number of processor cores that will be active in the system. Everything is very simple.

After confirmation, the program will prompt you to reboot. After rebooting, in the "Windows Task Manager" (Task Manager) you can see the number of active cores. Call "Task Manager" is performed by pressing Crtl+Shift+Esc.

Select the "Performance" tab in the "Task Manager". In it you can see the load graphs for each processor/core (whether it is a separate processor/core or a virtual processor, as we get in the case of Core i7 with active Hyper-Threading support) in the "CPU Usage History" section. Two graphs means two active cores, three means three active cores, and so on.

Now that you are familiar with the methodology of our tests, let's move on to a detailed review of the configuration of the test computer and programs.

Test configuration

Tests and settings

Test results

Let's start with the results of synthetic tests, so that later we can evaluate how well they correspond to real tests. It is important to remember that synthetic tests are written for the future, so they should be more responsive to changes in the number of cores than real applications.

We'll start with the 3DMark Vantage synthetic gaming benchmark. We chose the "Entry" run, which 3DMark runs at the lowest available resolution, so that CPU performance has a greater impact on the result.

The almost linear growth is quite interesting. The biggest increase is observed when moving from one core to two, but even then the scalability can be traced quite noticeably. And now let's move on to the PCMark Vantage test, which is designed to display the overall system performance.

The PCMark results suggest that the end user will benefit from increasing the number of CPU cores up to three, while the fourth core, on the contrary, will slightly reduce performance. Let's see what this result is connected with.

In the memory subsystem test, we again see the biggest performance gain when moving from one CPU core to two.

The performance test seems to have the biggest impact on the overall PCMark score, as the performance gain ends at three cores in this case. Let's see if the results of another SiSoft Sandra synthetic test are similar.

We'll start with SiSoft Sandra's arithmetic and multimedia tests.

Synthetic tests show a fairly linear performance gain when moving from one CPU core to four. This test is written specifically to make efficient use of four cores, but we doubt real applications will experience the same linear progress.

The Sandra memory test also suggests that three cores will give more memory bandwidth in integer buffered iSSE2 operations.

After the synthetic tests, it's time to see what we get in the application tests.

Audio encoding has traditionally been a segment where applications have not benefited much from multiple cores, or have not been optimized by developers. Below are the results from Lame and iTunes.

Lame does not show much advantage when using multiple cores. Interestingly, we see a slight performance boost with an even number of cores, which is rather odd. However, the difference is small, so it may simply be within the margin of error.

As for iTunes, we see a small performance boost after activating two cores, but more cores do nothing.

It turns out that neither Lame nor iTunes are optimized for multiple CPU cores for audio encoding. On the other hand, as far as we know, video encoding programs are often highly optimized for multiple cores due to their inherently parallel nature. Let's take a look at the video encoding results.

We'll start our video encoding tests with the MainConcept Reference.

Notice how much the increase in the number of cores affects the result: the encoding time decreases from nine minutes on a single-core 2.7 GHz Core 2 processor to just two minutes and 30 seconds when all four cores are active. It is quite clear that if you often transcode video, then it is better to take a processor with four cores.

Will we get similar benefits in TMPGEnc tests?

Here you can see the effect on the result of the encoder. If the DivX encoder is highly optimized for multiple CPU cores, then Xvid does not show such a noticeable advantage. However, even Xvid gives a 25% reduction in encoding time when moving from one core to two.

Let's start the graphics tests with Adobe Photoshop.

As you can see, the CS3 version does not notice the addition of cores. An odd result for such a popular program, although we admit we haven't used the latest version of Photoshop CS4. The results of CS3 are still not inspiring.

Let's take a look at the 3D rendering results in Autodesk 3ds Max.

It is quite obvious that Autodesk 3ds Max loves additional cores. This feature was present in 3ds Max even when it was running in a DOS environment, because the 3D rendering task took so long to run that it was necessary to distribute it over several computers on the network. Again, for such programs, it is highly desirable to use quad-core processors.

The antivirus scan test is very close to real life conditions since almost everyone uses antiviruses.

AVG Antivirus shows a wonderful performance boost when increasing CPU cores. During antivirus scanning, computer performance can drop dramatically, and the results clearly show that multiple cores significantly reduce scan time.

WinZip and WinRAR don't show noticeable performance gains on multiple cores. WinRAR shows a performance boost on two cores, but nothing more. It will be interesting to see how the just-released version 3.90 performs.

In 2005, when dual-core desktops began to appear, there simply were no games that showed performance gains when moving from single-core CPUs to multi-core processors. But times have changed. How do multiple CPU cores affect modern games? Let's run some popular games and see. We ran gaming tests at a low resolution of 1024x768 and with low levels of graphical detail to minimize the impact of the graphics card and to determine how much of the game's data hits the CPU performance.

Let's start with Crysis. We've reduced all options to the bare minimum except for object detail, which we set to "High", and Physics, which we set to "Very High". As a result, the performance of the game should depend more on the CPU.

Crysis showed an impressive dependence on the number of CPU cores, which is quite surprising, since we thought that it was more responsive to the performance of the video card. In any case, you can see that in Crysis, single-core CPUs give half the frame rate than with four cores (however, remember that if the game depends more on the performance of the video card, then the spread of results with a different number of CPU cores will be less) . It's also interesting to note that Crysis can only use three cores, since adding a fourth doesn't make a noticeable difference.

But we know that Crysis makes serious use of physics calculations, so let's see what the situation will be in a game with not so advanced physics. For example, in Left 4 Dead.

Interestingly, the game Left 4 Dead shows a similar result, although the lion's share of the performance gain comes after the addition of the second core. There is a small increase in the transition to three cores, but the fourth core is not required for this game. An interesting trend. Let's see how it will be typical for the real-time strategy World in Conflict.

The results are again similar, but we see a surprising feature - three CPU cores give slightly better performance than four. The difference is close to the margin of error, but this again confirms that the fourth core is not used in games.

It's time to draw conclusions. Since we received a lot of data, let's simplify the situation by calculating the average performance gain.

First, I would like to say that the results of synthetic tests are too optimistic when comparing the use of several cores with real applications. The increase in the performance of synthetic tests when moving from one core to several looks almost linear, each new core adds 50% of performance.

In applications, we see more realistic progress - about 35% increase from the second CPU core, 15% increase from the third and 32% increase from the fourth. It's strange that when adding a third core, we get only half the advantage that a fourth core gives.

In applications, however, it is better to look at individual programs, and not at the overall result. Indeed, audio encoding applications, for example, do not benefit at all from an increase in the number of cores. On the other hand, video encoding applications benefit greatly from more CPU cores, although this is quite dependent on the encoder used. In the case of the 3ds Max 3D renderer, we see that it is highly optimized for multi-core environments, and 2D photo editing applications like Photoshop do not respond to the number of cores. AVG Antivirus showed a significant increase in performance on several cores, and on file compression utilities the gain is not so big.

As for games, when moving from one core to two, performance increases by 60%, and after adding a third core to the system, we get another 25% lead. The fourth core in the games we have chosen does not provide advantages. Of course, if we took more games, then the situation could change, but, in any case, the Phenom II X3 tri-core processors seem to be a very attractive and inexpensive choice for a gamer. It's important to note that as you move up to higher resolutions and add visual detail, the difference due to the number of cores will be smaller as the graphics card becomes the deciding factor in frame rate.

Four cores.

With all that has been said and done, a number of conclusions can be drawn. In general, you don't need to be any kind of professional user to benefit from a multi-core CPU setup. The situation has changed significantly compared to four years ago. Of course, the difference does not seem that significant at first glance, but it is quite interesting to note how much applications have become optimized for multithreading in the last few years, especially those programs that can give a significant performance boost from this optimization. In fact, we can say that today it makes no sense to recommend single-core CPUs (if you can still find them), except for low-power solutions.

In addition, there are applications for which users are encouraged to purchase processors with as many cores as possible. Among them, we note video encoding, 3D rendering and optimized work applications, including antivirus software. For gamers, gone are the days when a single-core processor with a powerful graphics card was enough.

Hello everyone For a long time there have been disputes in the minds of users, which is better, high frequency or number of cores? Now there are many processors and basically they differ either in the number of cores and frequency, or all at once, so to speak. Because it is these two points that are the main factors that affect performance.

So look, let me show you with an example why sometimes a lot of cores are better, and sometimes a high frequency is better. Look, for example, let's take an office computer, where they create and edit documents, use the Internet, browsers. These are all not particularly demanding tasks, but for comfort it is better that all this works quickly. Yes, here you can take for example the Core i5 processor and it will still work quickly. But I would take the Pentium G3258 here (as an example), this is Stump, there are two cores and it can be overclocked well. But it costs a lot cheaper than i5. You can overclock it up to 4.4 GHz, so to speak, it is safe overclocking. And these two cores at a frequency of 4.4 GHz will allow you to get a fairly fast computer. And if you overclock to 4.6 GHz, it's even better. At the same time, the processor is not particularly terribly heated, but a good heatsink is, of course, what is needed.

Here is such an overclocking of the Pentium G3258 will be justified both in terms of price and in terms of performance

Now let's take everyone's favorite games. Do you often play multiple games at the same time? I think not. Therefore, there is no point in a large number of cores. But on the other hand, two cores will not be enough. Here the ideal golden mean is 4 cores, we have an i5 processor, I mean this for stationary computers, because laptop i5s can either have 2 cores and 4 threads, or just 4 cores, but laptop processors are definitely weaker. Ideally for games, these are 4 cores at a high frequency, at least at 4.2 GHz, this is already enough for a couple of years ahead, as it seems to me. Well, for three years, that's for sure. i7 is almost the same, but WIDER in power. You see. Not faster, but WIDER, that is, it will be able to pull something else besides the game, for example, the second game, if you are unique and play two games at the same time ..

There is another moment. Regarding the high frequency and two cores and why it is better for an office computer. Are you sure that all your programs can run in multi-threaded mode? And how well are they optimized for this mode? Well, what can I say, many programs work well in multi-threaded mode, old programs, of course, work worse. But whatever one may say, a NOT optimized program will work best on two powerful cores than on four with a not very high frequency, for example, 3 GHz. This is also a moment, consider it if you choose a processor. So for a stupid office computer, I would take a dual-core with an unlocked multiplier, so that I can overclock it well later.

In general, it seems to me that i7 is more suitable not for games, but for some more resource-intensive tasks. Well, for example, video processing, all sorts of photoshops, converting something .. It’s also good for games, no doubt, and if you want to take a processor with a good power reserve, then of course it’s better to take an i7 (but it certainly costs a lot).

Well, all the guys, that's all, I hope that here I was able to convey my idea to you and that everything was clear to you here. Good luck and may you always be in a good mood

In our progressive time, the number of cores plays a dominant role in choosing a computer. After all, it is thanks to the cores located in the processor that the power of the computer is measured, its speed during data processing and the issuance of the result. The cores are located in the processor chip, and their number at the moment can reach from one to four.

In that "old time", when four-core processors did not yet exist, and dual-core processors were a curiosity, the speed of computer power was measured in clock frequency. The processor processed only one stream of information, and as you understand, while the resulting processing result reached the user, a certain amount of time passed. Now, a multi-core processor, with the help of specially designed improved programs, divides data processing into several separate, independent threads, which significantly speeds up the result and increases the computer's power data. But, it is important to know that if the application is not configured to work with multi-core, then the speed will be even lower than that of a single-core processor with a good clock speed. So how do you know how many cores are in a computer?

The central processing unit is one of the most important parts of any computer, and determining how many cores it has is quite a feasible task for a novice computer genius, because your successful transformation into an experienced computer bison depends on it. So, we determine how many cores are in your computer.

Reception number 1

• To do this, press the computer mouse on the right side by clicking on the "Computer" icon, or the context menu located on the desktop, on the "Computer" icon. Select the "Properties" item.

• A window opens on the left, find the "Device Manager" item.
• In order to open the list of processors in your computer, click on the arrow located to the left of the main items, including the "Processors" item.

• By counting how many processors are in the list, you can say with confidence how many cores are in the processor, because each core will have a separate entry, though repeated. In the sample presented to you, you can see that there are two cores.

This method is suitable for Windows operating systems, but on Intel processors that are distinguished by hyperthreading (Hyper-threading technology), this method is likely to give an erroneous designation, because in them one physical core can be divided into two threads, independent one from one. As a result, a program that is good for one operating system will count each independent thread as a separate core for this one, and you will end up with an eight-core processor. Therefore, if your processor supports Hyper-threading technology, refer to special utilities - diagnostics.

Reception number 2

There are free programs for those who are curious about the number of cores in the processor. So, the unpaid CPU-Z program will quite cope with the task you set. In order to use the program:

• go to the official website cpuid.com, and download the archive from CPU-Z. It is better to use the version that does not need to be installed on the computer, this version is labeled "no installation".
• Next, you should unpack the program and provoke its launch in an executable file.
• In the main window of this program that opens, on the "CPU" tab, at the bottom, find the "Cores" item. This is where the exact number of cores of your processor will be indicated.

You can find out how many cores a Windows computer has by using Task Manager.

Reception number 3

The sequence of actions is:

• We launch the dispatcher by clicking the right side of the mouse on the quick launch bar, usually located at the bottom.
• A window will open, look in it for the item "Start Task Manager"

• At the very top of the Windows Task Manager is the “Performance” tab, here, using the chronological loading of the central memory, you can see the number of cores. After all, each window denotes the kernel, showing its loading.

Reception number 4

And one more possibility for counting computer cores, for this you will need any documentation for the computer, with a complete list of components. Find the processor entry. If the processor belongs to AMD, then pay attention to the X symbol and the number next to it. If it costs X 2, then you got a processor with two cores, and so on.

In Intel processors, the number of cores is written in words. If it costs Core 2 Duo, Dual, then there are two cores, if Quad - four.

Of course, you can count the cores by going to the motherboard through the BIOS, but is it worth it when the methods described will give a very clear answer to the question you are interested in, and you can check whether they told you the truth in the store and count how many cores are in your computer on your own.

P.S. Well, that's all, now we know how to find out how many cores are in a computer, even as many as four ways, and which one to use is already your decision 😉

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