please educate me

[eugenerhanley]

I have an 27' iMac 3.20 Ghz i3. I would like to know the difference between that chip and the 3.33 Ghz C2D. faster? slower? better ? I feel that I made a mistake trading in my 21.5" 3.33 Ghz C2D for the 27" i3 3.20. explain why is it better or not, in detail. If someone would, I would so greatly appreciate the education and ease of mind.

 

[Drewbie]

i3 has a 32nm structure vs the 45nm C2D configuration (i think the numbers are correct)

so more transistors packed into the same area, therefore more data can be processed at once

also I know the i3 uses less power consumption

 

[MrCheeto]

The Core i3 is faster than that Core 2 Duo... Who traded it and why?!

 

[TMRaven]

The new i3 chips are clarkdales, which are successor to desktop grade core2duo chips. They have a newer architecture (nehalem) vs older core2 architecture.

The benefits that come with nehalem architecture are that it runs cooler (thanks to more integration and/or smaller manufacturing process.) Has hyperthreading (tricking the OS into believing the cpu has double the amount of its physical cores-- a program that uses 4 threads/cores will use 4 logical cores on a dual core, hyperthreaded i3 clarkdale)
Turboboost is essentially the cpu overclocking itself when it needs extra power (i3s do not have this)
General advances in performance per clock-- around 20% greater.

 

[MrCheeto]

Who else remembers when Turbo meant pressing the button on the front of the desktop to change the processor's clock speed?

Bahahahahahahaha!

"When this thing hits 25mhz, you're gonna see some serious... DOS executions..."

 

[TITNTUFF]

I remember the turbo button very well. Along with green screens and orange screens.

I was ordering computers once and my boss told me "20 megabyte hard drives? We'll NEVER fill them up!"

 

[bigmacman]

I remember the turbo button very well. Along with green screens and orange screens.

I was ordering computers once and my boss told me "20 megabyte hard drives? We'll NEVER fill them up!"

I remember when I bought my first computer in '92/93, it had 2MB of RAM. I also had WordPerfect and Lotus 123 as the first two software purchased. Haha, seemed like a lifetime away...