WOF: Do you know what your CPU's clocked at?

Julio Franco

Posts: 9,090   +2,042
Staff member

Considering TechSpot's audience mix of techies, hardware enthusiasts, IT pros and gamers, the question above sounds overly simplistic, if not insulting, but is it? Over the last decade, the MHz measurement in your PC's processor has lost much of its meaning, in part because it's no longer an absolute reflection of performance, but that may not the end of it.

For example, I know I'm running a Core i7 870 processor in my workstation, but I have no clue what exact frequency the CPU is running at. I don't think that would have been the case 5 or 10 years ago when I ran my overclocked Celeron 300a or Athlon dual-core processor. Back then I cared about clock and bus speeds, RAM timings, and other details that today I barely pay attention to before upgrading to a new platform.

With devices like smartphones and tablets invading the consumer space in sheer numbers, bringing potential irrelevancy to component specifications, do you think this is a trend that will inevitably hit computers sooner or later?

How about yourself, off the top of your head (DON'T LOOK IT UP), do you know what's your PC's CPU clock speed? Discuss.

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Phenom II X4 965BE 3.4GHz.

The way I see it, the gamers are the backbone of the computer hardware market as they're the ones constantly buying new processors, video cards, cases, CPU coolers and all that performance candy. I believe that as long as the PC gaming industry is alive and well, so will the computer hardware industry be here to stay.
 
Intel 486SX 25 mhz.

I just saw the box on my closet yesterday :)

It even has 8 megs of ram, upgrated from 4, and a massive hard drive with 110 megs (220 with hard drive compresion)
 
Phenom II X4 965BE 3.4GHz.

The way I see it, the gamers are the backbone of the computer hardware market as they're the ones constantly buying new processors, video cards, cases, CPU coolers and all that performance candy. I believe that as long as the PC gaming industry is alive and well, so will the computer hardware industry be here to stay.
Well, that's nice. I think that the consumer prebuilt, school, industrial, and government markets spend more money on hardware than gamers. Then there's the mobile segment.
I really don't think you're all that significant in keeping the computer industry alive.
 
I don't get this article.

If I type "Core i7 870" into google the first result
indicates that it is a quad core with each core @ 2.93Ghz
What's the problem ?

Obviosly ones takes the processor architecture and date of release
into consideration as well, this isn't so diffuct to do is it?

Fast architecture + high clock speed = Best performance

Slow architercture + high clock speed = Slower performance
 
I would feel a lot more comfortable if you overclocked that to 2.2 flat.


K, Thanks, bye…
Too much heat added.....no thanks. It seems to keep up with this nonsense just fine, running as badly under clocked as it is.

Besides, I type so slowly, there's no point to it.
 
Lots of comments in less than an hour, however you're missing the point... you are not saying anything about recalling the spec yourself or looking it up (DON'T!) :)
 
In all honesty, I have no clue. I'm running a Core i5-750 (and have been since late 09), but I have no idea what its base or Turbo Boost frequencies are offhand.
 
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