CPU Basics?

I'm looking for a good website to teach me about the basics of CPU's. Because I'm thinking of getting a new one, and I got no idea of what to look for in CPU's.

Tyvm in advance.

 

Without meaning to sound pompous, it's here!
What is it you want to know?

 

I'm buying a new CPU, and I don't know what makes them good, and what makes them bad, infact I know very little about CPU's. This current one is a hunk-a-junk though.

 

What you want is a Core2Duo or a AMD Athlon 64 X2. How much money do you have?

 

also, which motherboard do you have? does it work with intel cpu or amd? how much speed is your cpu right now?

 

I currently have a Intel Pentium D 3.00Ghz

Unsure if it holds both.

I have about $1,500AUD.

 

Depending on the age of the motherboard you've got, it may be able to support a Core 2 Duo. What's the make and model of the motherboard?

 

According to the manual of my motherboard:
Gigabyte S-Series Motherboards. Supports Intel Core 2 Duo Processors.
GA-945GCM(X)-S2

 

Well most people say the best "bang for your buck" is the Intel E6750 at around $200us, not sure what the price is in AUD but I'm sure theres a place you could order it from. You could buy the E6850 for around $300us which is faster (3.0GHz to 2.66) and both have bigger FSB than most others (1333 to 1066).
Take your extra cash and buy a graphics card if you dont have one already, and you will have one nice machine.

 

I already got a pretty w00tness card.

ATI RADEON� X1600 PRO Specifications

RADEON� X1600 core (*Overclocked Version - 575MHz*)
512MB DDR2 / 256MB DDR2 / 128MB GDDR3/ (256MB GDDR3 *Overclocked Version - 1200MHz*)
PCI Express x16 / AGP 4x,8x versions available
CrossFire� Support (PCI-E model only)
Microsoft� DirectX� 9.0c / OpenGL 2.0 acceleration
Avivo� Technology
3D Graphics Resolution of 2560x1600 Max
TV-Out
Smoothvision HD + Adaptive AA
Vido acceleration of :MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264

 

Thx for your help guys, but I still want to learn about CPU's, not just told what's good and not.

 

You could always search benchmarks to see whats rated best.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html
There are extreme and quad core versions of CPU's also and might look better because they are flashy and cost twice as much. Or you can read benchmarks and product reviews and learn that with a little tweaking, the CPU's I listed will work just as well if not better than some at 3x the cost! I can tell you that the E6850 at 3.0GHz beats the pants off your Pentium D at 3.0 because it does more work per clock cycle. Then it has 2 cores instead of 1 so you can mult-task much better.
Look at things like socket type, clock cycle, #of cores (single dual, quad), and FSB
Look at that stuff and reply with any more questions you may have.

 

W00tness? I bought that graphics card for my fileserver, simply so it could run my 30" monitor. It doesn't have much graphics power at all. Hate to break it to you, but your graphics card is severely lacking in what i'd consider "wootness".

 

Yeah bro, your card is pretty... well sucky.

Ok the clock speed is how many operations in a second a CPU can do. The dual core and quad core, is kinda like 2(or 4) CPUs in one(doesn't double the clock speed). For example a 2 Ghz Dual core doesn't become a 4Ghz CPU.

The architecture tells how well the CPU utilizes that clock speed. A core 2 duo at 1.8 Ghz will knock the crap out of a Pentium 4 at 3 Ghz, for example.

If you have more questions, post back.

 

Alex, get ahold of an A+ certification guide from your local library (or from a techie friend) and check out the sections on CPU's, Mobo's, and RAM. You'll have a ton of info at your fingertips. Some of it will be pretty in depth, but everything is in there.