Which are the most important CPU specs?

[VAC]

Hi, which CPU specs are most important to look at.

I know which specs are for what. I just want to know what people look at.

So far:
Socket, Cores, Frequency...

[Omega]

Frequency doesn't mean anything, neither do cores.

[Morethan2Letters]

That it says Intel on the box.

[vadim]

Originally posted by ★ F L E X:

Hi, which CPU specs are most important to look at.

There are no any valuable specs. Only exact model number.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

How many instructions per cycle it need to do, and how fast it can do it. But there are other things that will vary from this as well, especially when it comes to software as how it utilize the hardware, as well what tasks it trying to give. Not everyone going to look at the same thing, as this vary to everyone needs.

Please explain what you're really asking here for, such as do you need help picking a CPU?

[Big Boom Boom]

IPC would be most important but nobody will show it you. Also it highly depends on what task you are doing. It's not a universal value, both AMD and Intel has different strength and weakness, it's hard to even compare IPC.

[Omega]

Like Big Boom Boom said, IPC is one of the main things I look for in a CPU. But since nobody puts a number on the box telling you exactly what the IPC is, it's kind of hard to compare CPUs.

A combination of everything you should look for in a CPU. Then compare that CPU on websites like cpu.userbenchmark (Not the best way of checking a CPU's power but it's should give you an OK idea of what the CPU is capable of).

Or you simply ask us or any other techie what the best CPU would be for you. We are quite familiar with the whole CPU line up, if you say you want to game and stream your gameplay to twitch and you are on a $2000 budget we will recommend a AMD Ryzen 1700(x) or Intel 8700k. If you say you only want to game and you have a budget of $600 we will recommend you a Pentium G4560.

[tacoshy]

Its like asking what is more important for an engine, PS, RPM or fuel usage.

A father proberly saying fuel consumption
A race car driver wants RPM
An Aircraft Carrier captain wants PS

...

same goes for CPU'S

[vadim]

Originally posted by Omega:

Like Big Boom Boom said, IPC is one of the main things I look for in a CPU.

ARM and Atom/Jaguar have very similar IPC. And even close clock rates. But x86 significally faster. Surprise?

[Omega]

Originally posted by vadim:

Originally posted by Omega:

Like Big Boom Boom said, IPC is one of the main things I look for in a CPU.

ARM and Atom/Jaguar have very similar IPC. And even close clock rates. But x86 significally faster. Surprise?

No.

[Kaihekoa]

I wouldn't worry so much about all the exact specs as they are all kind of like levers that in certain combinations and variations accomplish certain tasks better. Rather, identify the goal(s) you want to achieve with your system and look up reviews of the CPUs that are in your budget. Buy the one that performs best in what you want to do with it. You are on the Steam forums, so I assume you want a gaming CPU, look up reviews of the Ryzen 5 1600X, Ryzen 7 1700, Intel i7-7700K, and and the 8th generation Intel Core CPUs.

[hawkeye]

Benchmarks are the most important specs because they measure real world performance.

In the corporate IT world there are companies that just collect benchmarks and sell the data.

[Randox]

In terms of gauging performance level, you want to look at benchmarks. Processors are incredibly complicated, and no matter how deep you get into the specs you're only going to get a semi-educated guess at best.

There are other specifications not directly related to 'processor power' that can be important though, such as PCIe lanes or special CPU features. You'd be hard pressed to find a CPU that doesn't have this now, but if you were say, planning on doing a lot of work with virtual machines, you're going to want a CPU with hardware support for virtualisation like intel's VT-x (I have no idea what AMD calls it these days).

Cores and Threads can be a more important consideration for special tasks like rendering or streaming, where the performance impact will tend to be more pronounced than in games.