I think it is time to carry on the series about buying components for a home build PC. In this and the next post we will move on to another very important component the processor or CPU.  This is the engine for your computer and is the component that will be doing the majority of the hard work when you ask your computer to run your applications.  So it generally follows that the faster your CPU the better, but like most things it is not always as simple as that as amongst other things we have multiple processors to consider like the Core 2 Duo processor or even the Quad Core .

Multiprocessors

Back in March we  talked about the benefits of the Core 2 Duo and the whether it was worth going for a Quad Core processor. Both those posts are still valid today, and if you are building your own my advice is that you have to be buying one of these  or the AMD equivalent.  They provide some substantial benefits to the user in the areas of multitasking, such as running two programs at once as each of the two processors can handle different things at the same time. Multiple core processors  can also take advantage of any software that is coded to utilise multiple threads, i.e. Software that needs to different jobs, or needs to do the same thing multiple times, and has been programmed to allow this to happen in parallel.

Value sweet spot

The best value for money can be achieved by buying a CPU that is in the value sweet spot. Huh!, what is he on about?  Well just like for a lot of things you will often have to pay a significant  premium the top of the range product. For a CPU it is just the same, you will usually be paying a lot extra to get your hands on the top processor  and at the bottom end you will  find cheaper prices but obsolete technology and low performance.  The value sweet spot is generally the third or fourth CPU down from that top of the range model, assuming of course it is still utilises current technology.

An Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Dual Core is an example of a processor that I feel is sitting in that sweet spot. Do you have a good example! In the next post we look at all the things you need to consider when buying a CPU.