Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz vs Pentium 4 3.6 GHz

[Shaina11]

First off, yes I know, obsolete technology, etc, etc. But I am planing on building a retro rig for old games soonish and I was wondering about this.

On a single-core perspective, for things such as single-core games, and emulators such as DOSBox, etc, how would a 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo compare to a 3.6 GHz Pentium 4? Emulators like as much speed from a single core of a processor as possible. In this scenario, who wins?

I'm still thinking the Core 2 Duo might win due to the microarchitecture, however on a clock-for-clock single-core bases, I'm not sure how a 1.8 GHz would compare with a 3.6 GHz....

 

[leo2kp]

I would imagine the P4 would beat out the C2D simply based on the core speed. Clock-for-clock the C2D would be more efficient, but you have wayyyy more clocks with the P4. Also, the P4 is likely hyperthreaded, amirite? So if you have any multi-threaded applications, you will have a little benefit there too.

 

[caqde]

The core 2 duo is going to be faster and a lot better due to having more access to that single core for the application at hand based on it having two cores (The OS does things in the background). Even though the P4 has more clocks and hyperthreading... (which it can't take much advantage of due to it's horrible architecture.) it is still slower than a 1.8ghz Core 2 Duo.

 

[Karsten75]

some *very* old games have timers based on CPU clock frequency. If you plan on going that retro, then the slower processor would be your best bet. If you can save a few pennies, the slower processor would be your best bet, provided you stick to old games.

Might even be able to get an old motherboard with on-board graphics and save a few more pennies that way.

 

[blazorthon]

Hyper-threading won't make up for the Core 2 Duo having two cores, especially not the old implementation that was used with P4. It was scrapped until Nehalem for a reason ;P

As for whether or not the Core 2 Duo's arch can make up for half the clock speed where single-threaded games are concerned, It is actually enough of a difference that the two CPUs are roughly equal in single threaded performance with the Core 2 having a slight advantage overall. For dual-threaded software or multitasking, the Core 2's second core will give it a large advantage.
Simple but slightly useful:
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/492/Intel_Core_2_Duo_E6300_vs_Intel_Pentium_4_660.html

I recommend avoiding old integrated graphics in case you want to watch a youtube video or something on the computer. Those old GMAs were terrible with HD video.

 

[Lomidze2016]

Core 2 Duo will be more better than P4