Which Is Faster

[rwinegar]

I currently have a Dell XPS Gen 4 computer. It's 3 1/2 years old. I am thinking about buying a Dell T5400 work station. Gen 4 has Pentium 4 3.4GHz processor. T5400 has Zenon Quad Core 2.0GHz processor. I know that 3.4 is more than 2.0. But with the quad core technology can I expect that it will be as fast or faster than the Pentium?

[Train]

It is not the speed of the cpu that matters so much, but how the cpu is put together inside thus allowing a much slower cpu to do things much faster than the older faster ones.

If you game, stick with a dual cpu. If not go ahead with the quad.

You can do more things at the same time. Multitasking in other words.

[rwinegar]

OK. So slower is the new faster. I think I understand that. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't taking a step backwards by going from a Pentium 4 3.4GHz to a Zenon Quad Core 2.0GHz. It looks like I am moving forward.

Thanks everyone.

[Midknyte]

The overall clockspeed might be lower, but the work per cycle is higher in the Xeon.

The Xeon would have a larger on-die cache. In general, more cache = more speed.

Pentium 4s were single core (unless you mean a Pentium D). The new Xeon would have 4 cores, plus it can use hyperthreading. In windows, you'd see 8 processors (4 physical + 4 virtual).