Processor Clock Speed

which is better? A processor with high clock speed or one with a big mem cache?

i can’t tell which is better. i7-620M or i7-820QM? The 620M has up to 3.33 GHz speed but has a 4mb cache and the 820QM has up to only 3.06 GHz speed but has an 8mb cache.

Oh that’s a tricky one, They seem just as powerful. You might want to check if the features are the same which they probably will be such as if they have the same number of cores and both support hyperthreading etc which the information will be available from many sources

It’s up to you dude, clock frequency is all related to how many instructions the computer can perform at a certain rate, whereas with the cache that will basically mean the processor won’t have to communicate with the RAM and hard disk as much because contents are stored in either the L1, L2 or L3 cache so that may leave the processor less work.

It really is hard to justify, but i would personally go with the i7-820QM. Why? because this has more cache and the processor may not perform instructions as quickly, however, the data can make much better use of the cache and will be faster because of this. In short terms the processor wouldn’t have to perform as much intructions anyway because Cache is being used.

Also, please keep in mind that you cannot upgrade cache but you can increase clock speed by the use of “Overclocking” and therefore i really recommend you get i7-820QM for your machine.

The rest will be up to you

How to Over-clock your Graphics and CPU (And Bypassing the limit)