CPU Speeds x Performance

[heretolearn]

Hi, this is a theoretical Q?, that will help settle some debate (from my side) I hope..
Looking at the P3 + P4 series of chips,( brands and versions not mentioned) in general, do you feel that there is a greater performance in the, eg P4 #.## and it's cheaper Celeron version of the same speed, like wise again with the Athlon and the Duron,?
I know that back in the old days of the 386 and 486 and even the P90s and P120 the difference was not noticable. Also, the architecture of the Chip and it's design will greatly enhance the performance of a CPU.
I have been told that, even with todays P4s, that there is no advantage between, a 2.4ghz and a 2.8ghz for example. My question is not about Brand names, but just the theory side of it, the example above tells me that there is a 400mhz difference, and I know that this relates to for eg, a 10mhz chip and 400mhz chip, very noticable.
Further, are high end games a real good test for a system, with regards to the CPU that is, lets not involve the on board RAM and the Video Card at this time?

thanks

 

[VIAN]

You might notice something in cpu bound games.

 

[MatthewF01]

hasnt AMD pr taught you anything? 😉

clockspeeds can be pretty meaningless in some applications.

Its all about efficiency. Getting the most work done in the shortest amount of time.

 

[aka1nas]

I think what you are getting it is when the architecture of the cpu holds it back to the point that a linear increase in clockspeed gives a less than linear increase in performance? I don't think the P4 or athlon has quite reached that point as of yet, though there are a few caveats such as a P4 needing appropriate speed RAM to get best performance etc. Athlons sorta have this limitation with regard to increasing the FSB as they seem to not need as much bandwith compared to the P4 architecture.

As far as P4 vs Celeron and Athlon vs Duron, the main thing to understand is why they are different. Both of the value CPUs are essentially the higher end cpu with level 2 cache disabled. On the Celeron, this actually does kill performance a lot. On the Durons the performance degredation is somewhat less profound. The Celeron is also usually on a slower FSB than the current P4 as well.

High end games are only a good CPU test if the engine relies heavily on the CPU for some tasks. Otherwise it's more the video card thats doing the work. Even if the engine uses the CPU for rendering, it's really not a great test as no CPU is as efficient as a dedicated 3D accelerator in 3d rendering and you probably wouldn't want to max out your CPU rendering your game and have no spare cycles for the AI, sound, etc.