CPU

CPU’s abandoned the Ghz race last year. This is good because in the last few years Ghz as a measure of the power of a CPU was becoming increasingly irrelevant. You will have to make your choice from 2 brands: Intel and AMD. AMD and INTEL are battling fiercely and, as a result prices are currently very low and you will have a lot of power in your computer. Do not look at Ghz to determine the power of a CPU. The architecture of the CPU is the most important information in making a decision.

Intel

Intel currently has two architectures the (very) old NetBurst and the top of the line core. NetBurst is currently being phased out and will not remain on the shelves much longer. The core architecture is Intel’s latest and greatest. It is very efficient, runs cooler and has a good price tag for middle to upper level computers.

AMD

AMD uses the AMD 64 architecture. This architecture is relatively old but is still very good. It runs cool, is fairly efficient and is very well priced. For lower end computers, it is the one to get thanks to the price war with Intel.

After the architecture, the most important thing to consider is the amount of cores in the CPU: single; dual; or quad.  

A core is a CPU, a dual core CPU is nothing more than 2 CPU’s in one physical envelope. The advantage is obvious. Instead of one 2 CPU’s will work for you. It does not mean, however that your computer will be twice as fast. For certain applications that can take advantage of the 2 cores you might see an 80 to 90% performance increase. However, most applications are currently incapable to run on only one CPU. The main advantage of working with 2 CPU is overhaul responsiveness. If you do not want to have to wait for a program to finish what it is doing before continuing to use the computer, you will want a dual-core CPU.

The third aspect you will want to consider before making a decision is the socket. The socket is the physical interface you lock the CPU in the motherboard. You currently have five sockets on the market: socket 775 for Intel; socket A; 754; 939; and, AM2 for AMD. Out of those five, only two are to be considered sockets for 775 and AM2. The other sockets are being phased out rapidly and will not offer any upgradability in the future.

Socket 775 is Intel socket for everything from the Celeron to the latest core 2 quad. However, you need to be careful because certain motherboards will not accept core CPU, which we will discuss further in the motherboard section.

Socket AM2 will accept Sempron, Athlon, and Athlon x 2 (dual-core CPU)

These sockets should allow you to upgrade the CPU for the next 2 years.

Now that you know the generic information, we will be a little more specific.

Intel CPU Line

• The Pentium 4 (Celeron M) is the old NetBurst architecture is slow, runs very hot, phasing out. Not to be considered.
• The Pentium D is based on NetBurst architecture and has the same downfall
• Intel Core 2 Duo is the current king of the hill. The core 2 duo line starts at the e4300 up to the x6800. Intel also announced a new series of dual-core and single-core CPU to replace Celeron CPU at the low end segment.

AMD CPU Line

• Sempron: The current single-core low end segment CPU. Based on the AMD64 architecture they offer does not have bad performance for the price. However, we do not recommend them for anything but the lowest end computer.
• Athlon 64: Same as Sempron with more cache memory. It allows them to run faster. They use AMD speed equivalence naming for example an Athlon64 3500+ is supposed to run as fast as a 3.5 Ghz pentium4 even though the real speed is 2Ghz. With the price war going on in the dual core market, single core athlon64 lost most of their appeal because of the higher price tag when compared to the Sempron.
• Athlon x 2 : Dual-core from 3600+ to 6000+ and $60 to $230. With the price cut, these CPU’s are very interesting. They offer very good performance for the price, but for anything above 150, a core 2 duo will offer more performances.

Our pick

• Family/office computer: dual core or single core depending on your budget - $50
• All around gaming computer: upper low end CPU - $100
• Media center: low end dual core CPU - $70
• Gaming computer: middle end CPU - $200