Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
ProcessorandCPUCooler
AMD Athlon II X2 240
(
http://www.amd.com
)
We'd like a triple- or quad-core processor, but with only about $60 allocated
to the processor, our choices are realistically limited to single- and dual-core
“value” processors. Intel sells several models in this price range, but dollar-for-
dollar in value processors, AMD models offer more bang for the buck than
Intel models. At the time we purchased the processor for this system, the $60
retail-boxed AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor dual-core processor was clearly the
best processor for the money. Built on the 45 nm process, with two cores run-
ning at 2.8 GHz and maximum power consumption of 65W, this was the ideal
processor for our budget system. Of course, by the time you order your $60
processor it'll almost certainly be a faster model, but even this $60 value pro-
cessor is no slouch in terms of performance.
Figures Lie and Liars Figure
There's really no way to assign a
single number to quantify the overall
performance of a processor. Two
different processors with very similar
benchmark scores may have notice-
ably different performance, depend-
ing on what you test. One may, for
example, excel in rendering video but
lag badly on another type of task,
while the other is exactly opposite.
We always take benchmark numbers
with a (very large) grain of salt.
That said, the Passmark CPU Mark
score is a widely accepted metric for
overall processor performance, so we
include those one-number scores to
give you an idea of how the budget
processor holds up against the
competition.
We could actually have bought the 240 Regor processor for $53 rather than
$60, but that would have been an OEM model rather than a retail-boxed mod-
el. That extra $7 bought us both a 3-year warranty (versus a 30-day warranty
on the OEM model) and a reasonably quiet and effective CPU cooler. Given the
choice, it's almost always better to buy a retail-boxed processor than an OEM
model.
Even though it's a budget processor, the performance of the 240 Regor is rea-
sonably good. Table 3-1 shows the overall performance of our budget proces-
sor compared to the processors used in the other project systems in this topic,
and, for reference, benchmarks for several processors in older but still useful
systems we have around the house (RBT indicates systems used by Robert,
and BFT indicates Barbara's system). For comparison, we've also included the
three primary desktop systems we were using when we wrote this topic.
Table 3-1.
Relative processor performance
System
Processor
CPU Mark score
Extreme system
Intel Core i7 X 980
10,140
Current office desktop system (RBT)
Intel Core2 Quad Q9650
4,583
Mainstream system
Intel Core i5 661
3,170
Media center system
Intel Core i3 530
2,714
Current den system (RBT)
Intel Core2 Duo E6750
1,663
Budget and home server systems
AMD Athlon II X2 240
1,640
Current office desktop system (BFT)
Intel Core2 Duo E6400
1,263
Appliance/nettop system
Intel Atom D510
666
(Older system)
Intel Pentium 4 3.80 GHz
638
(Older system)
AMD Athlon 64 4000+
628
(Older system)
Intel Celeron 540
493
(Older system)
Intel Pentium 4 3.00 GHz
488
(Older system)
AMD Sempron 3100+
449
