Question about processors
Hi, whats the difference from the Core 2s that the imacs have and the xeons the mac pros have? Is it just more powerful? or is it more complicated, like the xeons are better at certain tasks?
The reason I ask is I'm curious in regards to gaming, although the xeons more expensive, maybe the core 2 is more designed for stuff like games
The reason I ask is I'm curious in regards to gaming, although the xeons more expensive, maybe the core 2 is more designed for stuff like games
Comments
The Core 2 Duo processors have either 2 or 4 MB L2 caches while the Xeons have 8 MB caches. This difference is where most of the performance differences come from.
As a result, Xeons probably will perform faster for gaming applications, though more often the graphics card is the bottleneck there.
-- Mark
There are currently available Xeon-branded chips that have slower FSBs as well, though as Backtomac points out, the Woodcrest and Clovertown chips in the current Mac Pro have faster FSBs than available Core 2 processors. Intel currently sells at least a few Xeon product lines and 3 Core 2 product lines. The single distinguishing factor between Xeons and everything else is cache size, although the top-end FSB speeds of the Xeon line are somewhat higher.
Intel are pumping out product so fast it's hard to keep up.