) on the right hand side of the configurator.| Processor (CPU) |
| The processor/CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the brain of your computer. The CPU is a piece of etched silicon that does some very powerful things. It co-ordinates the real work of your computer, telling all the peripheral devices what to do and how to act. The speed of a processor works in megahertz (MHz). One thousand megahertz is equal to one gigahertz (GHz). Therefore a 3.2ghz processor will run at 3200mhz. A common belief is that the faster the processor, the faster the PC will be. When choosing your processor speed, rather than throwing all your eggs in one basket and spending your budget straight away, choose a more balanced system: Example 1: Intel® Core™ i7-7700K Processor @ 4.2 GHz with 8GB RAM. Example 2: Intel® Core™ i5-7600K Processor @ 3.5 GHz with 16GB RAM. Which computer will be faster? For gaming or demanding use we would choose the second example because double the amount of RAM will allow for more programs to be open at once, giving better stability for gaming and a more responsive computer. See Memory (RAM) for more information. Multiple Core Processors Multiple core processors are designed to give a high performance using applications that support multi-threading. Besides the Microsoft Windows operating system which supports multi-threading, the main applications that support multi-threading are high end video editing packages and games. If you plan to run many programs at once, consider a processor with multiple cores. Providing the application has been written to benefit from multiple cores, generally speaking four cores are better than two, and eight cores are better than four. See also: Hyper Threading Technology (HTT) Should I choose an Intel or AMD Processor™ when configuring your new computer you have the choice of selecting an Intel based computer or an AMD based computer. Both processors offer excellent value and performance. At present Intel processors hold the crown for the best performance, however AMD processors offer the best "bang for buck". If you want the very best performance you should choose an Intel based computer. If however you want excellent performance with a very competitive price tag, choose an AMD based computer. |