Even today, Core 2 Duo processors clocked at 2 ghz are no slugs. However, the Core i7 920 is of a different kind. First, it is not only clocked at a higher speed (default 2,8 Ghz), it is also a quad-core processor. Thanks to the re- introduction of hyperthreading, this processor can handle 8 parallel proceses simultaneously.
Just how fast a Core i7 can be, especially if overclocked to 3,6 Ghz shows this diagram:
Using my still in development version of PPSS, four systems processed 400 GB of WAV files and converted them to MP3. This simple pie-chart shows that the Core i7 on it's own, using 8 parallel processes, managed to process 2/3 of the files. The Core i7 was way faster than the other 3 systems combined! This is marvelous, I think. And it seems all due to Hyperthreading. If an additional duo core system would have been added, the other systems combined would have also 8 parallel threads available and would have processed roughly 50% of the items. However, please note that the Core i7 is a quad core processor and has 'only' four physical cores...
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