Differences between Intel Processors

I'm looking into buying a new Dell Inspiron laptop with 3GB RAM and one of two processors. However, when looking at the processors section I noticed that they were offering the Intel T4200 and T6400. Both seemed to be exactly the same apart from the L2 cache size (1mb larger on the latter) and the name (T4200 is 'Pentium Dual Core' and T6400 is 'Core 2 Duo'). I have tried looking for additional specs and benchmarks but cannot seem to find any.

The laptop will be used mainly for surfing the net, word documents etc. However, I will also be installing Adobe's Creative Suite 4 as I will be doing some minor graphic design and web design.

Any light you could shed on the situation would be very helpful. Will spending an extra £50 (roughly $80 I think) give me a noticable improvement in performance and battery life?

Tags: cache, dell, difference, intel, l2, laptop, or, processor, t4200, t6400

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Permalink Reply by medinamatt on May 25, 2009 at 10:32am: yes, spending the extra £50 will be worth it. the Pentium dual core is a good basic dual core processor, but the core 2 duo is deigned more efficiently than the P DC.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gurjit on May 25, 2009 at 10:41am: The pentium dual core really sucks badly. Like matt said, you should pay the extra 50 to get a core2duo.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by medinamatt on May 25, 2009 at 10:45am: hey! im on a pentium dual core, lol. and my sis's soon to be laptop has a pentium dual core. its an OK processor. but the core2duo will help tremendously with the cs4 work; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Zune80 on May 26, 2009 at 10:55am: No it doesn't suck badly...that's harsh. It's just not as fast as the newer Core 2 Duo, Quads, and of course the i7.

For a basic laptop that is going to be used mostly for browsing, email, and some basic editing it's just fine. In fact it will run Vista pretty decently.

Of course geting the faster Core 2 Duo makes more sense for just a little more money, but you have to remember that not everyone has the money to get the latest and greatest and there is no need to upset someone by telling them the processor they are going to buy sucks. That's a downer. :)

BTW Matt Gibson..you don't want to install CS4 on a Pentium Dual Core. It won't run that great. Glad you're getting the faster processor. Enjoy! :)

Zune80; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Matt Gibson on May 25, 2009 at 10:47am: Thanks for the fast responses guys, I'll be purchasing the Core 2 Duo laptop tomorrow.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by medinamatt on May 25, 2009 at 10:48am: no prob. i love hardware better than software, so this was right up my ally.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by tjbackstage on May 25, 2009 at 10:50am: Yeah, you're going to want at least a Core 2 Duo if you're going to be using CS4 at all. Otherwise, you're going to really badly wish you had gotten the better processor. So in the long run, the extra 50 is COMPLETELY worth it! :); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Greg De Santis on May 25, 2009 at 4:02pm: This is my explanation of the purpose of cache memory:

Cache memory is the fastest memory as possible and it runs as the same speed as the processor itself so that the processor is not sitting there waiting on the much slower than the larger main system memory (RAM) - it is what makes the processor and computer as fast as possible. The more cache available the faster the computer is going to run.

L1 cache is attached directly to the CPU chip itself and runs at the same speed as the CPU.
L2 cache is part of the CPU module but not directly attached to the CPU chip itself, but is still part of the processor package. And L2 cache runs at CPU speeds (or nearly so), and is usually a bit larger and slower than L1 cache.
L3 cache is normally found in high-performance servers. L3 cache is usually part of the system motherboard. And L3 cache is larger (and most likely slower) than L2 cache.

But in the end the whole purpose of all cache subsystems — whether single- or multi-level — is to reduce the average access time to the RAM. Which means the more cache you have the faster you can run in respect to the processor you are using.

You can't have enough cache in your system either with the processor, hard drive or cd/dvd drive.

But in respect to the T4200 is 'Pentium Dual Core' and T6400 is 'Core 2 Duo' is that the extra 1MB of cache is divided evenly up between the two individual cores, just like the RAM. So in the end, the difference between the two processors is a 10% speed increase at best in the T6400, which would technically make it faster, but you really don't see a real world increase in speed to justify the increased price. It boils down to personal preference and do you have the extra money to burn.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Charan on May 26, 2009 at 10:52am: dual core is an OK processor but core 2 duo is far better than dual core .; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Justin on May 26, 2009 at 8:24pm: The Core 2 Dies do have superior TDP ratings, this roughly equates to better thermal efficiency. Larger cache is also an area that deserves a lot of attention. In close tolerance, the closer your interconnects are to each other the faster the processor can execute the code it requests, CPU cache acts an extremely fast access code buffer and at the same clear rate can make all the difference. This all equates to much better performance, but will you see that performance? Probably not, the things you plan on doing with the laptop are not very processor intensive however the better thermal efficiency equates to better battery life.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by TyphoidKitten on May 26, 2009 at 9:00pm: Core 2 duo ftw.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kitty on May 26, 2009 at 10:34pm: With that generation of processor, it would really be better to go with AMD (and I don't usually recommend AMD, so that's saying something), the memory architecture is better. That changes at i7. However, general rules of thumb for shopping Intel:

If it's a choice between an old dual like a pentium and a new dual core like the Core 2 Duo, go for the latest model.

If it's a quad core, the speed needs to match, or be within .5mhz of the core 2 duo speed for you to see a lot of results. This is going to change in the coming few years, but as it stands, most programs don't support parallelism well enough for a slower quad core processor to outweigh a slightly faster dual core (excluding i7 series, again, and i5s when they're available).; ▶ Reply to This