PC chip question

[ZuraX]

How do you tell what speed a PC is?
I see Office Max has a HP Pavilion with a AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 5000+ with 3GB RAM and a 400GB hard drive.

What is that in GHz?


Right now I have a Dell Pent4 3.20GHz with 500MB RAM and a 60GB hard drive...
Is mine faster in the processor area?

I have been thinking about buying a new PC because I think upgrading this one would be too hard and cost about the same as a new one...
Would need more RAM, and I want to try out Vista....

 

[shockie]

based on the "AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 5000+" part, it looks like 2.6GHz. i'd suggest you get more ram onto your current system and a bigger hard drive.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_13041^13076,00.html

 

[Humdizzy]

Because of the Dual Core on the AMD, it's faster than your P4. And I believe things work a lot faster on 64 bit architecture.

Anyways I say go for a new model.

 

[{insert name here}]

Yes the AMD chip is actually much faster.

Forget about the Ghz or Mhz speed of the processor.
The AM2 socket type allows for a much faster FSB (front side bus) allowing upto 2000Mhz (2Ghz), which means the info processed in the processor can be sent in and out much much faster.

Your P4 only has an FSB of 800Mhz, less than half. Everyone always gets hung up on the CPU speed, but that number means nothing if its getting bottlenecked. A 2.6Ghz with 2000Mhz FSB will work circles around a 3.2Ghz with 800Mhz FSB any day.

You will of course need to buy a new mother board, memory along with that CPU, as the MOBO will need to be AM2 Socket, and most AM2 boards only take DDR2 memory.

*ah, I just saw its a system, not just the CPU, that system looks very good, but would also depend on the PSU and video card, but I digress.

 

[Peter]

And I believe things work a lot faster on 64 bit architecture.

Not necessarily. The programs in question have to take advantage of the 64 bit for that to be the case.