I need a good comparison chart somewhere for different processor speeds.

[DuaneBidoux]

Everytime I think I have a chart or a way to compare different processors it take me to someplace trying to sell a specific computer.

My computers (desktop and laptop) both are very slow and I am trying to find out what I can expect to gain from some of the new technologies. My desktop has a Pentium IV but I can't find out what my laptop has.

I do video processing quite a bit now, especially on my desktop, and it just seems as slow as a snail.

[RoyGBiv]

1. You can try ...

www.tomshardware.com

or

www.anandtech.com

... for some processor reviews. You'll find that said reviews these days are focused on minutia like core size, power consumption, etc.

What you're looking for is difficult even to do, much less find. What you will find are side-by-side comparisons in a specific configuration, and you'll find that some processors perform better than others at certain tasks. If you don't use that specific configuration, your results will vary. The clock speed of a processor has far less to do with the relative speed of your system than it once did. You can't even put up two processors made by the same company, just with different clock speeds, and say this one is better than that one, particularly when it comes to deciding whether this one is better for a certain application than that one.

Certainly the processor affects things, and you can get a general idea of which processors are better than others. But you also have to take into account the motherboard, the type of memory, the video card, etc. I have a friend with an Intel Wolfdale e8000 processor that should outperform my AMD X2 4400 by leaps and bounds, but he went cheap on the mobo, memory, and video, and I can render video in significantly less time than he can. On the other hand, when compiling an enormous program from source, his system beats mine.

Overall, you're not going to go wrong upgrading from a Pentium IV, and you will see improvement for your video processing. You'll also see improvements by adding high quality memory, making sure your processor has a large L2 cache, etc.

In short, it's a complicated business.

[Gore1FL]

2. here is a fairly reasonable list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors

There are a few considerations in looking at a processor.

The ones I look at are:

Front Side Bus (FSB)
L2 Cache
Core
Internal Multiplier

VERY BASICALLY:
Front Side Bus is how fast the processor talks to the rest of the computer.

L2 Cache is high-speed memory local to the processor--it operates significantly faster than the FSB. The more it stores the less the computer is slowed down

Core is the meat of the processor. Core 2 is the fastest currently available (you can get them in duo or quad)

Internal multiplier is how many tics on the Front Side Bus does x number of cycles.


The way speed is calculated is Speed = FSB * multiplier.

a PC with a 400 Mhz bus and an internal multiplier of 5 will rate as a 2.0 Ghz machine.
a PC with a 800 Mhz bus and an internal multiplier of 2.5 will rate as a 2.0 Ghz machine.

The second of these will actually be faster under most circumstances.

If we took two devices with 800 Mhz buses and the internal multipliers of 2.5 but one had 2 MB of L2 cache, and the other had 4 MB of L2 cache the second would be faster.


With this in mind:

Look for a PC with a high front side bus speed, and a larger L2 cache. With today's multi-core processors, FSB is your real constraint, L2 cache counters that as well.

Another consideration, since you mentioned video processing, make sure you get a decent video card with at least 256 MB of On board memory. (shared MB memory is a much slower solution). I wouldn't go any lower than an Nvidia 8600 series.

If you are going to run Vista, you need a minimum of 2GB of memory or you will be wait on the memory to write out to the hard drive and back.

[sam sarrha]

3. if you have an off the shelf computer, maybe not much you can do, but go here..>LINK>>

http://forum.pcmech.com/index.php

check your system info and post it, ask what you can do with it.

they are very helpful.

i just built mine, got it together last night, ready for first the boot-up

... i believe you can get motherboard replacements, get a better one..upgrade your ram..
http://www.techimo.com/forum/motherboards/53303-compaq-presario-motherboard-replacement.html

http://www.computing.net/answers/hardware/help-with-motherboard/40248.html

doesnt look good .. shop around different stotes for a used case cheap, check local craigs list.. for case, other stuff go here http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=280&name=Intel-Motherboards..

again http://forum.pcmech.com/index.php are helpful as is our own computer forum, tell em what you can spend/wat you want, you can always get a little better board and upgrade later.

[BlueJazz]

4. Have you done the MSCONFIG thing ??