A 2.5 ghz core 2 duo processor contains 2 processors.Is it true?

Question

does it perform same as 5 ghz processor?

Answer 1

it is technically one processor that works as if it were two. but as for the 2.5 ghz it is only 2.5 ghz. it wouldnt add up to 5 or act like 5

Answer 2

As the name implies there are 2 CPU cores in a core 2 duo. Unfortunately having two 2.5 ghz cores does not equal a 5 ghz CPU. There is a theory called Moore's law related to CPU power. It goes something like every two years the power of integrated circuits would double. Put another way as time progresses things get smaller and faster. This has pretty much been the case up to the last couple of years. Companies like Intel are reaching physical limits on how small and fast they can make things. So as sort of a way around those limitations CPU manufactures started putting more CPUs into one package, like the core 2 series of processors. The idea is that applications, if written the right way are able to equally run their work load across all the CPUs. So instead of having one really fast worker you have many workers, but they are not as fast.



I have included a link to the info on Moore's law and Intel Core 2 CPUs.

Answer 3

No. It's all one processor, but it has two processing cores. There's more to a processor than just the core that does all the actual work. Also, it will still only run at 2.5 GHz. It doesn't work twice as fast, it just has the potential to do twice as much work at once.



Think of it this way. You need to dig a hole, and you move one shovelful every 10 seconds. If you get a friend to help you dig, you finish digging the hole faster because you're moving two shovelfuls every 10 seconds. You're not working twice as fast, you just have more than one person doing the work. Theoretically they should both have the same effect, but things get a little more complicated when you're talking about computers.



A processor can only run one thread at any one time. Most processes are made up of multiple threads, so modern processors can work around this and give the illusion that we're running more than one thread at once by switching very quickly from one to the other. It basically juggles every running thread around based on their priority. What a dual-core processor does is let you run two threads at once by running one thread in each core.



The thing is, the application you're using has to be coded to take advantage of multiple cores by allowing multi-threading (distributing the threads between the different cores). If it isn't (and most of them aren't), there really isn't any difference between running a single application on a single-core CPU and running that single application on a dual-core CPU. It only really starts to help out when running a lot of different applications at once.



There are also triple- and quad-core processors. Personally, I think they're too expensive to justify the negligible amount of performance gain you get from using them. The only exception is when playing newer games or more CPU-intensive applications that are multi-thread capable. If you're not planning on doing any hardcore gaming or 3D modeling, though, then anything more than 2 cores is really unnecessary. Especially if other companies besides Apple hop onto the OpenCL bandwagon, which would let you use your idle video card processing cores to balance the process load between the CPU and video card.

Answer 4

No on both fronts. A core 2 duo processor contains 2 cores on the one processor. Not two processors. And they will not operate at the equivalent of 5GHz. There is some trade off in speed when they are processing in tandem and that is only if the software is written to use multiple processors. Note that the frequency of the processor doesn't necessarily mean it is faster. For years Athlon processors ran at a lower frequency than Intel and AMDs processors were faster than Intels that ran at a higher frequency.

Answer 5

Good luck finding a 5ghz processor.



Ghz isn't a good measure for the performance of a processor for the reasons that have been stated.



Ghz just means the number of billions times per second the clock ticks in the processor. What happens every tick, well that depends on how fat the pipe of and how many pipes there are.



The fastest computer in the world at this moment runs at 850 mhz. It just has a helluva lot of processors!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_gene#Blue_Gene.2FP



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_instructions_per_second#Million_instructions_per_second

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flops



Now how does a lot of processors help you? Well you need software that's designed to split itself over multiple threads. That's a bit of a programming challenge, and there's quite a bit of stuff out there that's designed to use only one core. You can experiment by this by going into your resource manager with ctrl alt del and looking at your processor utilization if you have multiple cores.



The flipside of that is that when one core's getting maxed out by something, you still have another core to work with, so it's harder to lock up your computer under load.

Answer 6

a 5 Ghz proc? right...

anyway, yes it is. Dual core processors (ones with 2 cores) are use for multitasking. Take gaming for instance, One core (processor chip) can be used to handle game data, while the other handles background apps (think windows explorer, or antispyware scanners). Game can also be threaded for use of multiple cores. This divides the program to take advantage of the multiple cores. There are also quad core processors, and one with 8 cores (mac pro's have them). Also, some motherboards can support multiple cpus

Answer 7

yes,, its a dual core processor... basically 5 ghz



there are also quad cores.. 4 cores..