Comparing Processors: Q9400 and i5-661

The time has come when multi-core processors are nothing special. Moreover, many new (comparatively) standards and instructions have emerged that no longer allow processor performance to be assessed simply by clock speed or core count.

In this article I wanted to share two finds - three websites that allow you to compare two or more selected processors in a fairly convenient form. In my case, the interest was in comparing the Intel QuadCore Q9400 and the i5-661 (or 660).

Comparing them head-to-head

Compare Intel products - http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=33922,43553,

PassMark Indices

PassMark Software – CPU Benchmarks - http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

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Performance in Various Applications

Bench – CPU AnandTech - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/76?vs=117

Conclusions:

Digging around the web looking for information about these two processors (and their comparison) I have come to several conclusions:

1. Physical cores will be better than logical ones. (The i5 has two physical and 2 logical cores)
2. The i5 has a built-in memory controller, which will work more efficiently. Moreover, the memory is also DDR3.
3. Hyper-threading and Turbo Boost will probably be one of the bigger advantages of the i5.

Overall the processors appear comparable in terms of performance, although the newer technologies (present in the i5) make it superior and more promising.