Understanding the required specs for a game: Proccesor. - Hardware & Software

Whenever I'm looking at the specs for new games coming out, I sometimes do not understand what is meant for the processor. What is equivalent, how does dual core compare, and everything else. For example, the upcoming game, Aliens vs Predators. For the minimum Processor requirements it says, [quote]3.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4/Athlon 64 3000+ or equivalent processor[/quote] What does the 3000+ mean, and what would be equivalent? For Modern Warfare 2 the processor specs are, [quote]Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor or better supported[/quote] Once again what does the 3200+ mean. It confuses me because I have a 2.9GHz dual core cpu, and I can run Modern Warfare 2 fine. Can someone summarize or even link me to information regarding and explaining this?

3200 and 3000 are just model numbers as in this: [url]http://www.amazon.com/AMD-Athlon-processor-Socket-ADA3200BPBOX/dp/B0009B0KOQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1264905594&sr=8-1-spell[/url]

[QUOTE=Jaehead;19946816]3200 and 3000 are just model numbers[/QUOTE] Do they effect the processor's power? and how does a dual core compare with a single core?

Well, generally, higher model numbers mean that the processors are newer, which generally means better performance. A 3 Ghz dual core processor does NOT mean 6 Ghz. Performance depends on the program. If a program is not multi-threaded, then the performance difference would be minimal when comparing dual-cores to single core. However, if a program is multi-threaded (most games are) you will get considerably higher performance using a dual-core at 3 Ghz than a single core at 3 Ghz.

[QUOTE=Jaehead;19946964]Well, generally, higher model numbers mean that the processors are newer, which generally means better performance. A 3 Ghz dual core processor does NOT mean 6 Ghz. Performance depends on the program. If a program is not multi-threaded, then the performance difference would be minimal when comparing dual-cores to single core. However, if a program is multi-threaded (most games are) you will get considerably higher performance using a dual-core at 3 Ghz than a single core at 3 Ghz.[/QUOTE] Okay, Thanks for the info. and is there any rough estimate of how much GHz on a single core is equivalent to a dual core? Like 2GHz dual core is equivalent to 2.8GHz single kind of thing?

[QUOTE=Jaehead;19946964]Well, generally, higher model numbers mean that the processors are newer, which generally means better performance. A 3 Ghz dual core processor does NOT mean 6 Ghz. Performance depends on the program. If a program is not multi-threaded, then the performance difference would be minimal when comparing dual-cores to single core. However, if a program is multi-threaded (most games are) you will get considerably higher performance using a dual-core at 3 Ghz than a single core at 3 Ghz.[/QUOTE] is multi threading basically like in TF2 using all 4 cores (i have quad core) and when i formatted my computer i was pissed off cus suddenly my TF2 was running like shit and i forgot i had set it to using multiple cores all those years ago.

There isn't an accurate way to compare CPUs without benchmarks, unless they have the same architecture. For example, a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 core will be far outrun by a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo core, because the architecture on the C2D is much better.

There's a little more to proccessors than just cores, though requirements only state the clock speed and the amount of cores. If you'd like to understand the parts of the CPU that effect performance, I can give you a little run through. First, the main features of a CPU. CPU's speed are measured in ghz (pronounced: gig-ah-hurts), though it uses to be measure in mhz (pronounced: may-gah-hurts). When CPU's passed the 1000 mhz mark, they started using ghz to refer to the speed. There are aproxamately 1000 mhz in 1 ghz. There is a lot of technical detail behind how a CPU works on the fundamental level, but you're probably not interested. It's very complex and rather boring, formula for how to keep a large frequency square signal in sync across the entire unit, etc, nothing most people need to understand. The high the clock rate (i.e 3.2 GHZ) the better the performance. Today, almost all CPU's other than the lowest-end budget models use a technology called "multi-core". What this mean is, that basically a single CPU unit can have more than one proccessing cores on it. This is good. So for example, a quad core (4 cores) CPU that is advertised to have a clock rate of 3.2 GHZ actually have 4 independant cores proccessing the information. The operating system usually treats each core as an individual cpu. In order for all the cores to be used by a program, it must be designed to utilise them, so what that means is the program has to have been programmed to be able to split various calculations into "threads" and send them to each core. This technique allows a much higher efficiency CPU. Another important factor in importance is CPU cache (pronounced: cash, you better know how to pronounce that), while this generally doesn't have a high affect on gaming, it excels proccesses like converting video files to other formats, extracting data from compressed files, performing massive amounts of calculations within a reasonable time, etc. There are different versions of this cache, L1, L2 and L3. The higher the number, the lower the caches performance is, but cache versions like L1 are expensive, so generally CPU's these days have very little L1 cache, L2 cache is slightly slower, but is cheaper as well, so more can be included on the proccessor, L3 cache has the lowest performance but is the cheapest, so generally CPU's have the most of this. Currentally, the average amount is 4-6 MB, but on high-end CPU's it can be as high as 12-14 MB. I hope you enjoyed and/or learned something from the brief explanation, though if you want the nitty-gritty details, you can read the article on CPU's at wikipedia.

[QUOTE=GetOutOfBox;19947646]Words[/QUOTE] Thanks for the info, though the paragraph talking about GHz and MHz, I know most of this stuff, and I know most of the parts well of a computer except for the cpu, sound cards, and power supply. But thanks for everyone's help.