How To Get Your Money’s Worth

Last time, I went over a few things concerning the compatibility of different hardware; Now, I’ll discuss different specifications of some common pieces of the PC puzzle and how they should factor into your price considerations.

Processors

Clock speed and front-side bus (FSB) are two of the most basic CPU specifications. The clock speed tells you how many operation cycles per second the CPU will go through. It is a somewhat raw measure of performance, but it isn’t as useful as it used to be. AMD was famous for rethinking CPU design and creating chips that ran at lower speeds than Intel’s competing Pentium 4 line, yet were more powerful. In addition to causing mass confusion due to game developers no longer being able to reliably recommend a clock speed requirement, the idea’s success led to Intel following suit with their Core architecture.


All other things being equal, a higher clock speed is better. In fact, most variation in a family of processors is clock speed, generally with no more than a couple hundred megahertz (MHz) in between. Once you’ve decided on a line of CPUs, look at the price difference between models, and decide if the increase in price is worth the increase in frequency. There tends to be a sweet spot, such as an extra $20 buying you another 200MHz, while the next 200MHz is going to cost $80 more.


The front-side bus is a measure of the speed at which the CPU interfaces with the motherboard’s chipset, namely the northbridge. The most important thing to consider when looking at FSB speeds is the speed of the memory you’re going to use. The memory speed should match the FSB for optimal performance. Generally, motherboard manufacturers provide a listing of the memory speeds the board supports, if not a large list of compatible memory modules, so you don’t really have to worry about the front-side bus at all. If you plan to overclock, you could buy memory that is faster if you’re going to increase the FSB speed, or slower memory if you’re going to decrease it. Overall, the FSB isn’t really a price-related factor.

A CPU’s on-board cache is an oft-overlooked detail on a spec sheet. The cache is a small amount of memory that resides directly on the CPU, providing some extremely high-speed storage space. Frequently-accessed data is stored there to prevent excessive requests to the relatively slow main memory of the system. The more cache, the better, so if you can pay a few extra bucks for an increase, you should seriously consider it.

Overclockability is a major concern for those that are interested in kicking things up a notch (at their own risk). Practically every modern CPU can be overclocked at least a bit, but some are notorious for being able to run substantially faster with relative ease. Keep an eye out for the latter because they can provide a great bang for you buck, hopefully not literally. Most CPU reviews say something about overclocking ability; You can also read posts on hardware message boards to get an idea of the latest buzz.

An OEM CPU does not come with a heatsink/fan. If you intend to overclock or otherwise have no need for stock cooling, you can usually save some money by not buying the retail package.

Memory

Clock speed is the chief specification of system RAM. It tells you how many times per second the memory reads or writes data. Higher is better, of course, but it’s going to be limited by the CPU and/or motherboard. It’s usually best to choose a RAM speed that is equal to the front-side bus speed of your CPU and, as with most components, make sure it’s supported by your motherboard. If the RAM doesn’t sync well with the rest of the system, it will run slower than advertised or else will not work at all. Save money by not buying RAM your system can’t handle, unless you’re overclocking, in which case you might want the headroom.

RAM latency timings are shown as a sequence that looks like this: 4-4-4-15. Essentially, the lower the numbers, the better and more expensive the RAM is. They don’t make an enormous impact on performance, though, so the “value RAM” with higher timings but lower price are certainly worth it if you’re watching your budget.

Higher density RAM modules cost more. The trade-off is being able to fit more RAM in the limited number of slots on your motherboard, so decide if that is important to you.

RAM heatsinks aren’t very important so long as your overall cooling situation is sufficient. You shouldn’t have to worry about RAM overheating unless you’re overclocking quite a bit. That said, they tend to show up on all but the cheapest varieities of memory, and they do look kind of cool.