Why should you know the working principle of a processor?
To determine, which one suits you best. So, let’s move on to how processor works?
Yesterday we saw that Processor just do mathematical operations with 0s and 1s. Yes it does only that. It takes instructions and data from OS, processes it and returns back the results. Don’t get surprised, but this completes “How processor works?” section.
Applications of processor
A processor should
1. Compute faster
2. Compute several things simultaneously
3. Respond to user (interrupts) quickly
These are the basic applications or quality of a processor. Now it’s our part to decide the ones we need.
As I have said in Day 2, computer is used for several purposes. Let’s see the requirements of various users.
A common daily user
He will visit Internet regularly, open multiple tabs at once, hear songs and rarely work with media creation.
1. Open and close browsers quickly
2. Background songs should not lag
3. Play HD videos smoothly
4. Play casual games
5. Respond quickly (when he right clicks on desktop, menu should appear immediately)
Based on the above requirements a processor of not more than 4000 Rs is sufficient. Yes it’s true. I can prove it. But it will be dealt later in processor buying guides section.
Mid-range Gamer
Here comes the most interesting part. Humans differ from place to place and so are we. In India, 30fps, frames per second, is considered as smooth motion without any lag, but in several countries, users expect it to be 60fps.
Apart from the expectations of a common daily user, a mid-range Gamer needs his computer to run
2. Recent games smoothly at around 30fps, in high graphics settings
3. Upcoming games to be played at least at 25fps minimum at high settings
4. Future games that are to be released after 2-3 years, smoothly at least in medium graphics settings (but a processor won’t be an issue here, mostly)
How selection of processor does affect gamers?
Yesterday I said that though a processor processes quickly, the to and fro communication is needed to be faster for an overall faster experience.
Based on this concept, Gamers need powerful graphic card and not a powerful processor. There are some exceptions too. But since we expect an average of 30fps in games, a mid-range processor will do the job satisfactorily.
To be precise a processor of around 7000 Rs will be sufficient for almost all games to be played at around 30fps. In this range of fps, the graphic card will be the bottleneck in most situations.
You may ask me “Which particular processor model will be suitable for games?” It will be dealt in buying guides section.
For Multimedia Creators
They also require multi-core processors. Usually Intel processors perform well in Adobe applications. But not all Media Creation people use Adobe. Also some may work in Linux or Mac. AMD processors perform well in Linux, owing to their higher number of cores.
Normally, for the same price range Intel will offer you 2 cores less than AMD, but that doesn’t mean Intel processors will be slower. We will see more about multiple cores and clock speed of a processor tomorrow, in Day 5.
Media Creation people will expect their computer to be:-
1. Stable at higher loads
2. Faster processing, encoding, decoding speed
3. No compromise on output quality
They need powerful processor, RAM & Graphic card, but since this is processor section, now I’m dealing only with processors.
Medium scaled media creators may buy processors for around 12000 Rs. Highly professional creators should invest more than that.
If you are a casual computer user and if you do media creation occasionally or for hobby, a similar processor that is mentioned above in the gaming section for 7000 Rs will do the job. If you want to know the particular processor model, then wait for Buying guides to be published. In the meantime you may comment below if you want any suggestion regarding processors.