Processor speed or cache?

UncleZen

Conceptually, if I Had a choice of an i5 2.9Ghz 3mb cache or an i5 2.3Ghz 6mb cache - which one should I go for?
I'm thinking cache over speed but I may be wrong, Thoughts/views anyone?

Update:
i5 3570T 2.3Ghz 6GB Cache 4 cores
i5 3470T 2.9Ghz 3GB Cache 2 cores

-TangleFoot-

Model numbers?

• Sandy Bridge
• Ivy Bridge

misiek404

It depends, there is no single answer. More cache means less use of ram, but faster processor will calculate algorithms quicker (will use more energy though). Generally, more mhz and cache is better than less

Mirno

Normally there's 1.5MB per core - so the 6MB cache processor is probably a quad core...
Whether you want four cores or not depends on the sort of work you're doing on the machine.

Mirno

UncleZen

Updated my original post with processor models

Johnmcl7

The bigger difference between the two models you've mentioned is that the one with the lower cache is a dual core model and the other one is a quad core model. The advantage of the dual core model is that it's slightly cheaper (on paper at least), uses less power and it has a higher clock speed although both models can overclock themselves automatically which closes the gap - at full speed on a single core, the dual core processor can hit 3.6ghz and the quad core model 3.3Ghz.

A lot of software still doesn't take advantage of four cores or more so the quad core may not be as big an advantage as it seems although I would suspect in general use it wouldn't be much slower than the dual core and when it can use all its cores it will be quite a bit quicker.

With regards to only cache vs processor speed, unless the processor design was particularly reliant on cache I'd go for processor speed.

John

-TangleFoot-

UncleZen wrote: »

Updated my original post with processor models

Ding!*

*Found here.

Johnmcl7

-TangleFoot- wrote: »

Ding!*

*Found here.

That article isn't correct, they have the wrong thermal spec for the 3570T as they have given it a TDP around three times higher than the 3470T when it's only actually 10W higher. They seem to allocate the 3470T the win for thermal efficiency and running costs all of which is incorrect.

Also you can't compare specifications directly like that as the system does not understand cores, hyperthreading and turbo modes. It looks like the quad core processor has a much lower base clock speed than the dual core processor but this is not quite what it seems because when the quad core is only running on two cores it will overclock itself and bring its clock speed much closer to the dual core processor. This is a big advantage of the core I series processors as in the Core 2 days people would have to choose between two cores and a higher clock speed or four cores and a lower clock speed knowing that if they were running something that required two cores or less, the quad core would be slower. When the 3570T is running at its base speed that means all four cores are fully active which means it will be substantially faster than the 3470T as it only has the two cores.

Hyperthreading on the 3470T isn't an advantage over the 3570T because it is lacking two cores, it helps close the gap a bit when running multi-threaded software but it could only be an advantage if both processors had the same number of cores.

John

-TangleFoot-

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

That article isn't correct, they have the wrong thermal spec for the 3570T as they have given it a TDP around three times higher than the 3470T when it's only actually 10W higher.

Note: TDP is not a measure of power consumption.

Johnmcl7

-TangleFoot- wrote: »

Note: TDP is not a measure of power consumption.

I never said it was, I don't need links as I'm fully aware how processors and their specifications work which is why I knew the article is incorrect and misleading and you did not (I assume otherwise you wouldn't have posted it) - if you check the full specifications most of the power figures for the quad core are missing. And even with the incorrect data aside, you can't just claim one processor is better than the other in that regard based on just a single figure as the quad core processor will handle workloads differently to the dual core, in similar workloads it's unlikely both will always run at the same power level.

John

-TangleFoot-

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

check the full specifications

I did, right after reading your previous post. Validity of the data provided aside, I couldn't quite see what you were getting at.

Typical power consumption

90.75W vs 28.44W

30*3=90

TDP

45W vs 35W

35+10=45