What does the processor speed do

Question

Hi guys, I wanted to know what is the speed of processor. My PC is: Intel Core2 Duo E4300 1.8GHz, Biostar 945 motherboard, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS (256MB), DirectX 9.0c June 2008 Redistributable. I bought a Need for Speed ProStreet, I saw it's minimum system requir. They gave 2.8GHz for Win XP but it worked fine for me, How? What will high speed do and low speed do? Please tell guys. I want to know what is the difference between 2.8GHz and 1.8GHz? Please please tell me :)

ThanQ You in advance.

Answer 1

The game may have been refering to a 2.8 Pentium 4 processor or a Intel Core processor, rather than the new Intel Core2Duo.  A core2duo processor is actually a duel processor chip.  A pentium 4 processor is only one processor on the chip.  A Core processor is a duel processor, but not as fast.  A 1.8 core2duo processor is about as fast as a Pentium 4 3GHz processor, perhaps even a little faster.

They just work in different ways.  A higher processor speed means they can perform more tasks.  Having two processors on a single chip, means they can perform even more operations, but don't need to be as fast.  There are now Core2Duo 3.2GHz processors, which are far faster and far more powerful than your typical single processor chip, or early generation duel processor chip.

Your 256MB is probably Video RAM, rather than actual system memory.  I'm guessing you have at least 1GB or 2GBs of RAM.  256MB is pretty typical of modern day Video Memory.  With that much memory, you should have fairly smooth video resolution.

Because you are using XP, instead of Vista, your system isn't as taxed by the OS.  Vista requires at least 1GB or RAM to operate just the OS.  XP requires less RAM to opperate, so more RAM can be used to opperate your video game.

If you did upgrade to a faster Core2Duo processor, the game may run even smoother, and crash less often.  It may start quicker, and the image quality may even increase, although image quality mostly relies on the type of video card and ammount of video memory.  If you were to upgrade your video card to something with 512MB of video memory, you'd have even better resolution.

You're system sounds like it's fine for running that game and many like it.

Best of luck.  :-)

Answer 2

If you have a slower processor - you might experience stalls or slowdowns during game play - more RAM means that you can operate more programs at once without experiencing delays - less means that your system can't handle as much action at once.

There are two types of memory in your computer - one stores things (files , music, etc) and one helps your computer run the programs on it.

Answer 3

Hi,

The processor Speed determines how fast you processor is able to process the data sent to it.

The reason why the game worked fine on your PC is because the requirement was 2.8 Ghz (on single processor) where as you has a Core 2 Duo 1.8. Core 2 Duo basically has 2 processors so you had 2 processors working at 1.8 each that would add up to 3.2 Ghz (not exactly though) and your requirement was only 2.8 thus it worked fine. Another reason was also that you had a graphics card too which reduces the burden on the processor.  

Answer 4

Processor speed handles calculations and data transfer. In a game, it handles things such as physics, stats, etc. Faster speed will give you better framerates and faster load times.

If you want significantly better framerates, get a new graphics card.

Answer 5

the minimum requirements are referring to a single core processor.  you have a dual core each with a speed of 1.8GHz. It's like having two processors combined into one chip.

Answer 6

As i know that the processor is main part of comp.. when any program is made to be run it shares memory of processor. when multiple programs are run they all also share memory with processor ,but if ur processor is of slow speed than it will be a difficult to run multiple programs at same time& ur comp. will hang.

Answer 7

Many factors inside and outside of the CPU exert a significant impact on CPU performance, and on overall system performance.

The CPU

CPU speed is measure in megahertz. A 1MHz CPU can accomplish one million CPU cycles in one second.

Does this mean that a 2MHz CPU is twice as fast as a 1Mhz CPU?

Not necessarily. This depends on how much work each CPU accomplishes in each clock cycle.

The 1MHz CPU might very well be faster, in practice, than the 2Mhz CPU - if it is more efficient or can process more tasks in each CPU cycle.