Fastest single core processor

[JAGedlion]

I'm trying to run an application written a while ago which is only a single thread. This is also a program which needs an immense amount of power to run well. My colleague made the mistake of upgrading to a xeon quad core and sure enough, the program maxes out at 25% cpu speed (one core just hits the roof), his performance actually dropped since his last computer.

So I wanted to know from you guys, what can I get now given these constraints? This is really going to be the only use for this computer, so I don't care how much better it will be able to run office or IE, just this one single core program.

Right now, I was thinking celeron. Better yet, is there something I can put into my colleague's socket to down/up grade it?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

If his board is a socket 775 he could replace the quad with an E8500 dual core. And you can overclock it much further than a quad. The E8500 will be faster than any single core chips available in single threaded apps. The quad he has is likely faster than a celeron.

More info would be helpful, which zeon quad? what was the previous CPU?

 

[Liberator21]

Well on Xtremeforums you can read about guys hitting 7Ghz with the latest model Pentium 4's (don't know the model number). This is always done with LN2 or the like, so it's unrealistic to think about running one of these at this speed. I said all that however, to say that if overclocking is in the picture, the latest 775 Pentium 4 might be worth a shot.

But in my mind, a Penryn at comparable speeds to a P4 should still be faster, am I wrong?

 

[JAGedlion]

I'll ask tomorrow which chip he has, I'm not sure he'll go for the over clocking thing though.

 

[taltamir]

get an E8500 dual core penryn. turn off one die, OC as much as possible (and it would be possible to OC higher since one die is off and not generating heat)

 

[TC91]

e8600 is coming out before the end of the year but it will probably be a tad pricey.

 

[SexyK]

There is almost no chance that any single-core CPU he was using previously was faster than one core of a modern quad-core CPU, but we'll need to know what his old machine was to be sure. Either way, the QX9770 will offer the best single-threaded performance possible today, with the E8500 coming in a close second. If he's running a xeon, he's probably on a whole different platform, though.

 

[zach0624]

An e8xxx dual core will destroy any single core cpu in single core performance do to the fact that the second core can be used for background tasks. Also the fastest single cores are celerons which will get destroyed by all dual core cpus because of its low cache and slow speed. the extra cache in the dual core alone will improve performance over a single core. ( I think so atleast) clock for clock a penryn of any sort will destroy a pentium 4 no matter what it is clocked at (unless you get the p4 at 7ghz to go up against a 2.6ghz c2d). Although as TC91 said the QX9770 will gice you the absolute single core perf. it is not worth it for 600 dollars more over the e8500 for a slight edge in single core perf.
BTW if your friend has a 771 system both of these should have 771 equivalents. The E8500 has a xeon equivalent and the qx9770 I know comes in a 771 variety for skull trail.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: zach0624
An e8xxx dual core will destroy any single core cpu in single core performance do to the fact that the second core can be used for background tasks.

No, it's nothing to do with second/additional cores. For most ppl (i.e. non-power users), so-called background tasks (OS) are normally <1% of usage: just check TaskManager.

I agree with zach that clock speed is important (and probably also L2 cache), as is the architecture in general i.e. OP should be looking at Core2 with high clock speed and large L2 cache.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

The fastest single threaded performance from a desktop CPU is going to come from an E8xxx chip. Yes a Q9xxx chip would be equally as fast assuming clock speeds are the same, but it isn't going to be considered for several obvious reasons.

Yes, a 2nd core would go to waste but you simply can't match the speed, even with a heavily overclocked Athlon 64 or Pentium M. I guess you we could consider Pentium 4 if it provided an easy 'downgrade' route, but it would certainly need to be heavily overclocked to match the single threaded performance of the quad it is replacing, and by doing so makes that choice seem rather silly due to inefficiencies with power consumption and heat production. Plus any old, truly single core system isn't necessarily going to be any cheaper to throw together than a newer E8xxx system, and certainly not any easier when considering the parts are only going to be getting harder and harder to find.

 

[biostud]

the 25% just shows that one of the 4 cores is running at 100% load.

 

[iBPJohn]

Originally posted by: betasub

Originally posted by: zach0624
An e8xxx dual core will destroy any single core cpu in single core performance do to the fact that the second core can be used for background tasks.

No, it's nothing to do with second/additional cores. For most ppl (i.e. non-power users), so-called background tasks (OS) are normally <1% of usage: just check TaskManager.

Actually it does. Even if it is <1% it still takes resources. If a background process needs to use the CPU and it only has one core, it has to stop the main program, run the background process then switch back to the main one. This will happen a lot if the programming running has a lot of O/S calls such as accessing files and what not.
Now how much this affects the performance, I'm not really sure

 

[Sunrise089]

Talk of 7ghz Pentium 4s is absurd, as is talk of Celerons. As others have indicated, any Core2Duo class chip with the highest combination of cache and clock speed is the obvious choice here.

 

[Toadster]

Originally posted by: biostud
the 25% just shows that one of the 4 cores is running at 100% load.

100% correct

you definitely need to get the fastest clock speed CPU -whether it's single/dual/quad core - it will attack your single threaded app at the cpu speed for that part...

since the mainstream is dual-core you can do the fastest core 2 duo out there that will fit your board... the extra core does NOT need to be disabled, you'd more than likely see degraded performance since the single core would have to deal with overhead from the Operating System, etc... the 2nd core WILL let the first thread max out on one of the cores while your 'other' processes can be run on the other CPU(s)

good luck!

 

[magreen]

Originally posted by: Sunrise089
Talk of 7ghz Pentium 4s is absurd, as is talk of Celerons. As others have indicated, any Core2Duo class chip with the highest combination of cache and clock speed is the obvious choice here.

:thumbsup:

Wow, there's lots of misinformation in this thread. Sunrise got it right.

(e.g. a 7 GHz P4 is about as fast as a 3.5GHz C2D in single threaded apps. So just OC your E8500 a wee bit and you're faster than that. Also, lots of Xeons run in an LGA775 socket and are just a regular consumer cpu renamed as a Xeon.)

 

[zach0624]

Originally posted by: iBPJohn

Originally posted by: betasub

Originally posted by: zach0624
An e8xxx dual core will destroy any single core cpu in single core performance do to the fact that the second core can be used for background tasks.

No, it's nothing to do with second/additional cores. For most ppl (i.e. non-power users), so-called background tasks (OS) are normally <1% of usage: just check TaskManager.

Actually it does. Even if it is <1% it still takes resources. If a background process needs to use the CPU and it only has one core, it has to stop the main program, run the background process then switch back to the main one. This will happen a lot if the programming running has a lot of O/S calls such as accessing files and what not.
Now how much this affects the performance, I'm not really sure

I guess what I meant by background tasks was more along the lines of a background virus scan and most small tasks really won't effect the cpu performance greatly between single and dual. Also the extra core will make your computer feel much quicker.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: zach0624

Originally posted by: iBPJohn

Originally posted by: betasub

Originally posted by: zach0624
An e8xxx dual core will destroy any single core cpu in single core performance do to the fact that the second core can be used for background tasks.

No, it's nothing to do with second/additional cores. For most ppl (i.e. non-power users), so-called background tasks (OS) are normally <1% of usage: just check TaskManager.

Actually it does. Even if it is <1% it still takes resources. If a background process needs to use the CPU and it only has one core, it has to stop the main program, run the background process then switch back to the main one. This will happen a lot if the programming running has a lot of O/S calls such as accessing files and what not.
Now how much this affects the performance, I'm not really sure

I guess what I meant by background tasks was more along the lines of a background virus scan and most small tasks really won't effect the cpu performance greatly between single and dual. Also the extra core will make your computer feel much quicker.

Literally everyone understands this, except those very very few excursions of folks who frankly must be 100% new to the scene or are only recently gaining conscienceness of the world around them (happens circa 8 years old).

I disregarded the silliness of 80% of the posts in this thread because as magreen stated this thread is about as useless as my man nipples, but yeah you are soooo right and it is just soooo wrong that it became necessary for you and iBPJohn to further clarify the statement.

Next you guys will find yourselves defending the statement that we need oxygen to survive when breathing.

 

[magreen]

Technically, we don't need oxygen to survive when breathing, we need metabolized sugars being brought to the brain through the bloodstream...

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: magreen
Technically, we don't need oxygen to survive when breathing, we need metabolized sugars being brought to the brain through the bloodstream...

Surely you mean "in addition to" and not "we don't need"...

As in "in addition to oxygen, we also need XYZ to survive".

Saying "we don't need oxygen to survive" followed by anything else in the sentence will not make the first part of the statement any less false.

We need oxygen to survive, in addition to many many other things.

 

[magreen]

Oh, I don't know. I was mostly kidding. On thinking about it again, the oxygen is used in metabolizing sugars into energy inside the mitochondria, right? I suppose that is within the actual brain cells, not within the blood stream or something. Oh well. I guess we do need oxygen to survive.

But I do love discussions about man nipples.

 

[ChaosDivine]

Originally posted by: betasub
No, it's nothing to do with second/additional cores. For most ppl (i.e. non-power users), so-called background tasks (OS) are normally <1% of usage: just check TaskManager.

Doesn't it depend on the user? Anti-virus, anti-spyware, weather bug, bonzi buddy, etc.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: magreen
But I do love discussions about man nipples.

I didn't think anyone really reads those comments.

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: magreen
Oh, I don't know. I was mostly kidding. On thinking about it again, the oxygen is used in metabolizing sugars into energy inside the mitochondria, right? I suppose that is within the actual brain cells, not within the blood stream or something. Oh well. I guess we do need oxygen to survive.

But I do love discussions about man nipples.

Oxygen is used in either the Creb cycle or Respiration (Can never remember which) to recreate Adenicine Tri-Phosphate (ATP) in animals and plants (plants also use photosynthesis, in combination with the two that we use). ATP is what all known life uses as energy (break off a phosphate, make energy). So oxygen is used by all known life to function.

edit: I probably spelled some of this stuff wrong. It has been about 15 years since I had a biology class, and I don't deal with this type of stuff in my job.