[ale] Confused about processor speeds

[Jeff Hubbs]

This is reminiscent of how my bleeding-edge AMD64 laptop at 1.8GHz gave 
up little or nothing to faster 32-bit CPUs once everything on the laptop 
had been specifically compiled for AMD64.  It wasn't the 64-bit-ness; it 
was the cache, the additional registers, and the overall CPU design.

- Jeff
> That's not always the case.  First off, any desktop environment will
> have multiple threads running at once, as will any halfway-used server. 
> Additionally, newer processors may have a lower clock speed, but in
> practical use, even a single thread generally runs faster: they have
> larger caches, better optimized instruction sets (fewer clock cycles per
> operation) and, in some cases, more in-processor registers and other
> hardware features.  I've clocked a 2 GHz Core Duo running MUCH faster
> than a 2.8 GHz P4 (HT, 2003 era). 
>
> David
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