Modern day performance equivalent


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Hi -

 

Is there an easy way of finding which current generation Intel processor provides the same level of performance as the processor in my desktop (7 year old Core 2 Duo E6400 "Conroe")?

 

Just to be clear, I mean a modern processor that benchmarks about the same...

 

 

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Umm, they are a totally different technologies. Ghz means nothing. Unless you mean benchmarks, go to tomshardware or anandtech.

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I think that was the whole point.  Modern technologies, similar benchmark.  The i3 is a little faster but still around the same.

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I think that was the whole point.  Modern technologies, similar benchmark.  The i3 is a little faster but still around the same.

And the i5 is not much more in terms of price (this has been the case since Sandy Bridge, and hasn't changed a whit since).

 

Unless you are buying a portable, I find it hard to recommend an i3 for precisely that reason - the i5 is priced way too close to it.

 

If anything, the lack of HTT in the i5 makes the case even easier for the i5, as the i5 has two additional real cores instead of the two virtual cores of the i3 substitutes.

 

The same applied back in the Core 2 day (Core 2 Duo v. Core 2 Quad) - the Great Kentsfield Fire Sale simply made it obvious.

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And the i5 is not much more in terms of price (this has been the case since Sandy Bridge, and hasn't changed a whit since).

 

Unless you are buying a portable, I find it hard to recommend an i3 for precisely that reason - the i5 is priced way too close to it.

 

If anything, the lack of HTT in the i5 makes the case even easier for the i5, as the i5 has two additional real cores instead of the two virtual cores of the i3 substitutes.

 

The same applied back in the Core 2 day (Core 2 Duo v. Core 2 Quad) - the Great Kentsfield Fire Sale simply made it obvious.

I wasn't sure what the OPs intentions were.  Modern architecture with same benchmark?  Or best bang-for-the-buck?

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And the i5 is not much more in terms of price (this has been the case since Sandy Bridge, and hasn't changed a whit since).

 

Unless you are buying a portable, I find it hard to recommend an i3 for precisely that reason - the i5 is priced way too close to it.

 

If anything, the lack of HTT in the i5 makes the case even easier for the i5, as the i5 has two additional real cores instead of the two virtual cores of the i3 substitutes.

 

The same applied back in the Core 2 day (Core 2 Duo v. Core 2 Quad) - the Great Kentsfield Fire Sale simply made it obvious.

I wasn't asking which CPU would be the best value for money.  I want to know what CPU offers roughly the same performance but on a current generation architecture.

 

I wasn't sure what the OPs intentions were.  Modern architecture with same benchmark?  Or best bang-for-the-buck?

It was very much modern architecture with same benchmark, not necessarily best bang-for-the-buck.

 

According to this the Celeron J1900 (1930) runs circles around Core 2 Duo E6400 (1283), but the Celeron J1800 (1051) doesn't come close.

 

Why? Why do you want to keep the performance of a CPU to that of a 7 year old machine? 

Why not? The performance of my current set up is more than adequate.  It is inefficient from a power draw point of view, noisy and not the prettiest system.  I want to know what the cheapest system I could build that wouldn't result in a retrograde step in performance.  I don't see the point spending lots of money on a over powered machine I just don't use.

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Just get whatever i5 you can afford and it will be great,  and be as efficient or better than what you have, anything less is IMO a waste of money 

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Just get whatever i5 you can afford and it will be great, and be as efficient or better than what you have, anything less is IMO a waste of money

Thanks but that doesn't answer my question at all. With the very greatest respect, I didn't ask what you thought was worth it. I asked how I would find a processor which is 'modern' providing performance equivalent to the 7 year old processor I currently have in my desktop.

This isn't a money based question. I'm not being cheap about it, I just want help answering what I thought was a relatively simple question.

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The newer Celerons aren't too bad, for the most part. I would recommend getting an i3, though. I don't know what the direct equivalent is, though. I'm running an i3 in an HTPC and it's perfect. I run several media servers on it and it performs pretty well.

An Atom Z3770 actually scores a little better than the E6400. That would definitely be your best bet from a power perspective and still have decent performance. Benchmarks don't always tell the whole story, though. You have to take into account what you're doing.

We have Dell Venue 11 Pro 5130s at work with the new Atoms's and they'll run some light Photoshop and most other apps with ease. Surfing and such. Not bad to use daily. I definitely wouldn't game or do video encoding on one, but they might be a good fit.

The G1820/1830 (Haswell 1150), are both 54W and decent performers.

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The one actual modern CPU that comes close is the i3-4130t (and it still beats it) all the others linked are about a year old now. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Duo-E6400-vs-Intel-Core-i3-4130T

 

Yes you could drop down to a Pentium or Celeron and get a nearer match benchmark wise, but they really are bottom of the barrel budget CPU's lacking a lot of features, it's not all about a benchmark number.

CPU's have come a long way in 7 years. But budget CPU's are still budget CPU's and missing a lot of features, ones your E6400 might have had as it wasn't a budget CPU. and you could now lose if you just match benchmark numbers.

 

I understand that's what you've asked and if that's all you care about then the above i3 is more than enough and probably all the Pentiums and Celerons will be as good as well, there's pretty well no new CPU that won't out perform a 7 year old one.

But please consider the advice of myself and others above me and get something at least half decent like the i3...I wouldn't even give my grandparents a Pentium...

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The newer Celerons aren't too bad, for the most part. I would recommend getting an i3, though. I don't know what the direct equivalent is, though. I'm running an i3 in an HTPC and it's perfect. I run several media servers on it and it performs pretty well.

An Atom Z3770 actually scores a little better than the E6400. That would definitely be your best bet from a power perspective and still have decent performance. Benchmarks don't always tell the whole story, though. You have to take into account what you're doing.

We have Dell Venue 11 Pro 5130s at work with the new Atoms's and they'll run some light Photoshop and most other apps with ease. Surfing and such. Not bad to use daily. I definitely wouldn't game or do video encoding on one, but they might be a good fit.

The G1820/1830 (Haswell 1150), are both 54W and decent performers.

Thanks for the advice.  When you say you wouldn't want to encode video on them, do you mean that you wouldn't even put a DVD and walk away from the machine for a few hours.  My current set up takes about an 1 hour to encode 25 minutes of DVD to MP4 using Handbrake.

 

 

The one actual modern CPU that comes close is the i3-4130t (and it still beats it) all the others linked are about a year old now. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Duo-E6400-vs-Intel-Core-i3-4130T
 
Yes you could drop down to a Pentium or Celeron and get a nearer match benchmark wise, but they really are bottom of the barrel budget CPU's lacking a lot of features, it's not all about a benchmark number.
CPU's have come a long way in 7 years. But budget CPU's are still budget CPU's and missing a lot of features, ones your E6400 might have had as it wasn't a budget CPU. and you could now lose if you just match benchmark numbers.
 
I understand that's what you've asked and if that's all you care about then the above i3 is more than enough and probably all the Pentiums and Celerons will be as good as well, there's pretty well no new CPU that won't out perform a 7 year old one.
But please consider the advice of myself and others above me and get something at least half decent like the i3...I wouldn't even give my grandparents a Pentium...

 

What features would be missing in the Celerons, Pentiums and Atoms?

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It'll be things like Hyperthreading, speedstep, virtulisation technology, AES instructions set, the other big difference is supported RAM.

 

That atom above the Z3770, is no good for a full desktop PC, needs a special socket, they're more for tablets and mini desktops (like Mac Mini size ones) etc..and it can only support 4GB of RAM, which now a days is not really enough, no system should be built with less than 8GB else your RAM becomes the bottle neck.

 

The Pentium is closer, that can go in a full desktop on a standard socket and supports 8GB RAM, which leaves no room for expansion, but at least enough for a good build.

But is still missing most of the things i listed on the 1st line.

 

The i3 supports up to 32GB RAM and has all the features, plus better built in graphics, now all the Intel CPU's comes with intel HD graphics but again the i3 is a lot better, supports more displays, more GPU RAM, and features like ClearHD and 3D technology. depends what you'll use your system for.

 

Like we've said there's so much more to CPU's now than just a benchmark number.

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Just to contribute on this one, avoid the Bay Trail Celerons. They're not what you're chasing. Haswell based Celeron would be a decent option to your question.

The Atoms support AES, Speedstep (you meant Turbo Boost) and Visualization extensions, however most don't enable it in Bios. http://ark.intel.com/products/84324/Intel-Atom-Processor-Z3570-2M-Cache-up-to-2_00-GHz

4GB of RAM is enough for most builds. Technically minded people like ourselves will definitely benefit from 8, but most (read 90% of) users are fine with 4.

Pentium supports integrated HD graphics (like the i3).

@ OP - CPUBoss for basic benchmark comparisons. If you want to compare the chips on a more detailed level, look into http://ark.intel.com . There are mobile app versions of it as well (even for Windows Phone). For what you are doing the J2900 Pentium is a pretty close fit to what you have, but drawing a ######ton less power and significantly improved graphics (like 4x).

I do however agree with everyone here, regardless of your objections, the i5 is a significantly better choice for an insignificant extra amount.

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Yeh the Atom does have AES but not speedstep, and speed step and turbo boost are separate things, even his old E6400 has speed step, but like I said Atoms aren't really designed for a normal desktop as you'll only get micro itx boards and the like for it.

and yes the all support virtulisation but only the i3 and up have VT-x with extended page tables (SLAT) technology.

 

Yeh the Pentium has Intel HD graphics, so does the Atom, they all do now, but its the exact spec and model of the Intel graphics that makes a difference.

Tthe i3's is substantially better.

 

There's also things like the i3 supports PCI 3.0, others are only 2.0, more memory bandwidth, larger cache, thermal monitoring, which none of the others have except his E6400 so he's lose that with anything lover then a i3

 

Here's the Pentium, E6400, i3 and Atom compared on ARK

http://ark.intel.com/compare/82105,27249,77481,76760

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and it can only support 4GB of RAM, which now a days is not really enough, no system should be built with less than 8GB else your RAM becomes the bottle neck.

 

Yet again, it all depends on what you want to do with your PC.  My guess, since OP wants a modern CPU with the same level of performance than his current CPU, he's not playing BIG games or doing anything big like movie editing or huge photoshoping.  So, 4Gb is more than enough, no need for 8 or more.

 

I'm running Word/Excel and 4-5 tabs in Chrome with music playing in the background in Foobar2000 and Metro Facebook on my ASUS VivoTab 8, all on 2Gig of RAM and an ATOM Z3745 CPU...  Yet it still able to play all the games in the Microsoft Store, things like Asphalt 7/8, Halo Spartan Assault, ...  Nice for a small & cheap tablet...

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Yet again, it all depends on what you want to do with your PC.  My guess, since OP wants a modern CPU with the same level of performance than his current CPU, he's not playing BIG games or doing anything big like movie editing or huge photoshoping.  So, 4Gb is more than enough, no need for 8 or more.

 

I'm running Word/Excel and 4-5 tabs in Chrome with music playing in the background in Foobar2000 and Metro Facebook on my ASUS VivoTab 8, all on 2Gig of RAM and an ATOM Z3745 CPU...  Yet it still able to play all the games in the Microsoft Store, things like Asphalt 7/8, Halo Spartan Assault, ...  Nice for a small & cheap tablet...

 

Thanks for this answer.  My usage is essentially the following:-

  1. Surfing the web, worse case I have about 8 tabs open in Chrome.
  2. Productivity applications: Word (30-60 page documents), Excel (500 or so lines, 40-50 columns), PowerPoint (slides heavy with graphics) and Visio (not massively complex diagrams).
  3. Ripping CDs to FLAC, and than converting them for iTunes (AAC) - maybe 1-2 CDs a month
  4. Ripping DVDs to MPEG-4 - usually about 2 DVDs a month.
  5. Administration of various platforms using their web interfaces, RDP and SSH, and platform specific tools (XEN Center, etc).
  6. Writing some code - mainly playing, very light, attaching to DBs and back-ends that are running on servers that are virtualised on a different boxes.
  7. Watching catch up TV, mainly live sports when the Mrs or my little one won't let me watch it on TV.
  8. Light image correction (RAW to JPEG conversion, colour balance adjustment and straightening).
  9. Video calling (Google Hangouts or Skype) - on occasion.

I do not game (beyond games of patience and very basic puzzle games) on my computer.  I do not run VMs on my desktop (I have a server for that), I have a NAS that gets all of the download and file-serving duties.

 

My set up today is:

Core 2 Duo 6400, NVidia Quadro NVS290 (fanless), 4GB RAM (of which the operating system sees 3.25GB because of the BIOS), 256GB Samsung 830 SSD (OS and Apps), 500GB Samsung EVO 840 SSD (data and files), DVD-RW, WiFi 802.11G PCI card (that isn't even used as the machine is wired to the wall), Dell U2711 (1440P) monitor, USB speakers, Microsoft LifeCam Studio HD webcam, Windows 8.1.  The current machine, despite being 7 years old, absolutely flies with everything I throw at it, even today.  It doesn't fly for DVD ripping, but that is something I typically start and then walk away, sometimes I will use the desktop when a DVD is ripping but I don't care if it takes 20 minutes or 8 hours, as long as the system doesn't become completely unusable. 

 

I just want to replace my machine, on a temporary basis (until something genuinely better comes along, e.g. natively supporting 2-3 5K monitors), with something quieter (ideally silent/fanless), uses a whole lot less power, is a whole lot quieter and takes up a whole lot less space (midi tower) than my current set up but isn't a retrograde step backwards in overall performance (and did I mention that I wanted it to be quieter?).  I want to spend as little as possible as it will be temporary (I guess less around a year).  After this I may relegate it to some other duties - or just give it away t someone.  I imagine I will keep the SSDs from my current set up for the new machine, I also have a USB DVD Rewriter which I will use instead of going with something built-in to a tower/base.  I would like my new machine to have Bluetooth rather than using a USB dongle as I do today, but it isn't a deal breaker.  I prefer to run my monitor over DisplayPort (have a completely irrational hate of DVI).

 

I understand that everyone is recommending at least an i3, but I can't believe that my processor which wasn't even top of the range 7 years ago now still can go toe-to-toe with a processor that is at the lower end of the middle of the range today.  It's unbelievable that things have moved on so little in the 100 (Intel says the processor was launched 2006-Q3) or so months that have passed since my current processor was released!

 

Rant over.... :laugh:

 

For the sake of comparison I priced up a Fanless i3 NUC, which I think would tick all of my boxes for about

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No offence intended, but that's one of the oddest setups I've seen in a while, you have some very high end SSD's couples with some rather old tech, which is probably bottlenecking the SSD's.

You have a GPU designed for CAD work.

 

And apparently a motherboard so old you can only see 3.25GB of RAM, which also makes me think its very very unlikely to support SATA 3 which is again bottlenecking your SSD's as I have the exact same EVO 840 and I know it is SATA 3.

The only counter to that would be are you running 32 or 64 bit windows? if its 32bit then its not your BIOS causing the RAM issue but the OS, 32 bit windows can't use more than 3.25GB of RAM.

 

Finally now that we know you're planning to replace in 12 months or so, if your happy with the performance of your current system, I'd switch my recommendation and just say keep what you have and save the money, then maybe you can upgrade in 9-12 months and get better kit then, with DDR4 becoming mainstream and a new gen of Intel processor due out early 2015, 9 months or so give time for the prices to come down a little.

 

If you do still want an upgrade then the one big difference the i3 will make is the DVD encoding due to the better Intel HD Graphics built in (you can ditch the Quadro, the integrated HD4400 is way more powerful).

 

Otherwise the Pentium I put in that ARK comparison should do you fine, (like I said avoid the Atoms they're not designed for full desktops).

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No offence taken.  The set up works, and works well.  Besides the noise and the unsightliness of the box, that is.

 

The Quadro NVS is not a CAD card, it is a card intended for multi-monitor business application use (very popular with the financial trading crowd).  There are other cards in the Quadro range that are intended for 3D applications (such as CAD), but this isn't one of them.  I chose it because it was cheap (I think I paid

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Since you tend to hang on to your system for long periods of time, I wouldn't get anything less than an i3. In fact, I recommend an i5, just to future proof yourself. Not sure why you would ever buy a "temporary" computer, it's just a waste of money imo. Since you don't game, you can push a 4k monitor easily - just get a low end GPU. So, rather than buying temporary, get something nice and use it for 6+ years.

 

Not sure how you do it - up until last year, my work laptop had very similar specs (C2D P8400, 4GB RAM) and I absolutely hated it even with an SSD. It was just god awful slow.

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