Comparison It-Blok Multimedia i7 7700 B vs It-Blok Optimal i5 7400 C

The main manufacturers of processors nowadays are Intel and AMD, also in 2020, Apple introduced its M1 series CPUs (with further development as M1 Max and M1 Ultra), later showing the next generation M2(M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra). The list of current Intel series includes Atom, Celeron, Pentium, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Core i9, Core Ultra 9 and Xeon. For AMD, in turn, this list looks like this: AMD Athlon, AMD FX, Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7, Ryzen 9 and Ryzen Threadripper.

In general, each series includes processors of different generations, similar in general level and positioning. Here is a more detailed description of each of the options described above:

— Atom. Processors originally designed for mobile devices. Accordingly, they are distinguished by compactness, high energy efficiency and low heat dissipation, but they “do not shine” with performance. Perfect for microcomputers (see "Type"), among the more "large-format" systems are extremely rare — mostly in the most modest configurations.

— Celeron. Low-cost-level processors, the most simple and inexpensive consumer-level desktop chips from Intel, with the appropriate characteristics.

— Pentium. A family of low-cost desktop processors from Intel that is slightly more advanced than Celeron, but inferior to models from the Core i* series.

— Core i3. The simplest and most inexpensive series of desktop Core chips from Intel includes chips of the low-cost and inexpensive middle class, which, nevertheless, surpass Celerons and Pentiums in terms of performance.

— Core i5. Medium-level family among Intel Core processors; and in general, the chips of this series can be attributed to the average level by the standards of desktop systems.

— Core i7. A series of high-performance processors that has long been the top among Core chips; only in 2017 did it lose this position to the i9 family. However, the presence of an i7 processor still means a fairly powerful and advanced configuration; in particular, such CPUs are found in premium-level monoblocks, and are also quite popular in gaming systems.

— Core i9. The top series among Core processors, the most powerful among general purpose Intel desktop chips. In particular, the number of cores even in the most modest models is at least 6. Such chips are used mainly in gaming PCs.

— Xeon. High-end Intel processors, the capabilities of which go beyond the standard desktop chips. Designed for specialized applications, among PCs they are found mainly in powerful workstations.

— AMD FX. A family of processors from AMD, positioned as high-performance and at the same time inexpensive solutions, including for gaming systems. Interestingly, some models come standard with liquid cooling.

— Ryzen 3. AMD Ryzen chips (all series) are promoted as high-end solutions for gamers, developers, graphic designers and video editors. It was among these chips that AMD pioneered the Zen microarchitecture, which introduced simultaneous multithreading, which made it possible to significantly increase the number of operations per clock at the same clock frequency. And Ryzen 3 is the most inexpensive and modest family among the "ryzens" in terms of characteristics. Such processors are produced using the same technologies as the older series, however, half of the computing cores are deactivated in Ryzen 3. Nevertheless, this line includes quite performant models, designed, among other things, for gaming configurations and workstations.

— Ryzen 5. A family related to the middle level among Ryzen processors. The second series on this architecture, released in April 2017 as a more affordable alternative to Ryzen 7 chips. Ryzen 5 chips have slightly more modest performance characteristics (in particular, lower clock speeds and, in some models, L3 cache size). Otherwise, they are completely similar to the "sevens" and are also positioned as high-performance chips for gaming and workstations.

— Ryzen 7. Historically the first series of AMD processors based on the Zen microarchitecture (for more details, see "Ryzen 3" above). One of the older families among the "ryzens", in terms of performance it is second only to the Threadripper line; many PCs based on these chips are gaming.

— Ryzen Threadripper. Specialized Hi-End processors designed for maximum performance. They are mainly installed in gaming systems and workstations.

— Apple M1. A series of processors from Apple introduced in November 2020. They belong to mobile solutions (see "Type" above), are performed according to the system-on-chip scheme: a single module combines a CPU, a graphics adapter, RAM (in the first models — 8 or 16 GB), an NVMe solid-state drive and some other components (specifically Thunderbolt 4 controllers). Accordingly, among PCs, the main scope of such chips are compact nettops. As for the characteristics, in the initial configurations, the M1 processors are equipped with 8 cores — 4 performant and 4 economical; the latter, according to the creators, consume 10 times less energy than the former. This, combined with the 5nm process technology, has made it possible to achieve very high energy efficiency and at the same time performance.

— Apple M1 Max. An uncompromisingly powerful SoC with a focus on maximizing Apple desktop productivity for complex tasks. The Apple M1 Max line was introduced in the fall of 2021, it debuted on board Mac Studio computers.

Apple M1 Max consists of 10 cores: 8 of them are productive, and 2 more are energy efficient. The maximum amount of built-in combined memory reaches 64 GB, the “ceiling” of its bandwidth is 400 GB / s. The graphics performance of the Max version of the M1 single-chip system is about twice that of the Apple M1 Pro. The chip contains over 57 billion transistors. An additional accelerator for the professional ProRes video codec has also been introduced into its design, which allows you to easily play multiple streams of high-quality ProRes video in 4K and 8K frame resolutions.

— Apple M1 Ultra. Formally, the M1 Ultra chip consists of two Apple M1 Max processors on a single UltraFusion substrate, which allows information transfer at speeds up to 2.5 Tbps. In the language of "dry" numbers, this bundle consists of 20 ARM computing cores (16 high-performance and 4 energy efficient), a 64-core graphics subsystem and a 32-core neural computing unit. The system-on-chip supports up to 128 GB of combined memory. About 114 billion transistors are packed into the processor package. The main purpose of the Apple M1 Ultra is to confidently work with complex resource-intensive applications in the manner of processing 8K video or 3D rendering. In life, the processor can be found on board Mac Studio desktop computers.

In addition to the series described above, in modern PCs you can find the following processors:

— AMD Fusion A4.... The entire Fusion processor family was originally created as integrated graphics devices, combining a central processing unit and a graphics card in one chip; such chips are called APU — Accelerated Processing Unit. Series with the index "A" are equipped with the most powerful integrated graphics in the family, which in some cases can compete on equal terms with inexpensive discrete video cards. The higher the number in the series index, the more advanced it is; A4 is the most modest series among Fusion A.

— AMD Fusion A6. A series of processors from the Fusion A line, relatively modest, but somewhat more advanced than the A4. For common features of all Fusion A, see "AMD Fusion A4" above.

— AMD Fusion A8. A rather advanced series of Fusion A processors, the middle option between the relatively modest A4 and A6 and the high-end A10 and A12. For common features of all Fusion A, see "AMD Fusion A4" above.

— AMD Fusion A9. Another advanced series from the Fusion A family, slightly inferior only to the A10 and A12 series. For common features of all Fusion A, see "AMD Fusion A4" above.

— AMD Fusion A10. One of the top series in the Fusion A line. See "AMD Fusion A4" above for general features of this line.

— AMD Fusion A12. The top series in the APU Fusion A line, introduced in 2015; positioned as professional-level processors with advanced (even by APU standards) graphics capabilities. For general features of the Fusion A range, see "AMD Fusion A4" above.

— AMD E-series. This series of processors belongs to the APU, like the Fusion A described above, however, it is fundamentally different in specialization: the main scope of the E-Series are compact devices, in the case of PCs, mostly nettops (see "Type"). Accordingly, these processors have compactness, low heat dissipation and power consumption, but their computing power is also low.

— Athlon X4. A series of low-cost consumer-level processors, originally released in 2015 as relatively inexpensive and at the same time relatively performant solutions for the FM + socket.

— AMD G. A family of ultra-compact and energy-efficient processors from AMD, made on the principle of "system on a chip" (SoC). Unlike many similar chips, it uses the x86 architecture, not ARM. Positioned as a solution for devices with an emphasis on graphics, in particular, gaming. However, we are not talking about gaming PCs: like most processors of a similar "weight category", AMD G is found mainly in thin clients (see "Type").

— VIA. Processors from the company of the same name, mainly related to energy-efficient "mobile" solutions — in particular, many VIA models are directly compared with Intel Atom. However, despite the modest performance, such CPUs are found even among desktop systems; and in the future, the company plans to create full-fledged desktop chips, competing with AMD and Intel.

— ARM Cortex-A. A group of processors from ARM, the creator of the microarchitecture of the same name and the largest manufacturer of chips based on it. A feature of this microarchitecture compared to the classic x86 is the so-called reduced instruction set (RISC): The processor operates with a simplified instruction set. This somewhat limits the functionality, but allows you to create more compact, "cold" and at the same time performant chips. For a number of reasons, the ARM architecture is mainly used in "mobile" processors designed for smartphones, tablets, etc. This is also true for the ARM Cortex-A series; in PCs, such CPUs are rarely installed, and usually we are talking about a compact, modest device like a “thin client” (see “Type”).

— Nvidia Tegra. Initially, these processors were created for portable devices, but recently they have also been installed in PCs, mainly in monoblocks. They are "system-on-chip" devices that do not use the "desktop" x86 architecture, but the "mobile" ARM architecture, which requires the use of appropriate operating systems; the most commonly used is Android (see "Preinstalled OS").

— Armada. Another type of ARM architecture processors, positioned as high-performance solutions for cloud computing and home servers, including NAS. It is found in single models of "thin clients" (see "Type").

— Tera. A specialized family of processors designed specifically for "thin clients" (see "Type") and fundamentally different from classic CPUs (both full-size and compact). Tera-based systems are usually full-fledged "zero clients" (zero client), absolutely not capable of autonomous operation. In other words, these are devices designed to create a "virtual desktop": the user works with the interface and terminal equipment (monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.), but all operations take place on the server. This allows you to provide increased security when working with sensitive data. But in more traditional PCs, Tera processors are practically inapplicable.

Of the outdated series of processors that can still be found in use (but not for sale), we can mention the Sempron, Phenom II and Athlon II from AMD, as well as the Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Duo from Intel.

Note that on the market there are configurations that are not equipped with a processor — in the expectation that the user can pick it up on his own; however, this is a rather rare option.

The specific model of the processor installed in the PC, or rather, its index within its series (see "Processor"). The full model name consists of the series name and this index — for example, Intel Core i3 3220; knowing this name, you can find detailed information about the processor (characteristics, reviews, etc.) and determine how suitable it is for your purposes.

The number of threads supported by the bundled PC processor.

A thread in this case is a sequence of instructions executed by the kernel. Initially, each individual core is able to work with only one such sequence. However, among modern CPUs, more and more often there are models in which the number of threads is twice the number of cores. This means that the processor uses multi-threading technology, and each core works with two instruction sequences: when pauses occur in one thread, the core switches to another, and vice versa. This allows you to significantly increase performance without increasing the clock frequency and heat dissipation, however, such CPUs are also more expensive than single-threaded counterparts.

Clock speed of the CPU installed in the PC.

In theory, higher clock speeds have a positive effect on performance because they allow the CPU to perform more operations per unit of time. However, this indicator is rather weakly related to real productivity. The fact is that the actual capabilities of the CPU strongly depend on a number of other factors - the overall architecture, cache size, number of cores, support for special instructions, etc. As a result, you can compare by this indicator only chips from the same or similar series (see “CPU”), and ideally, also from the same generation. And that's pretty approximate.

Processor clock speed when running in TurboBoost or TurboCore mode.

Turbo Boost technology is used in Intel processors, Turbo Core — AMD. The essence of this technology is the same both there and there: if some of the cores work under high load, and some are idle, then some tasks are transferred from more loaded cores to less loaded ones, which improves performance. This usually increases the clock frequency of the processor; this value is indicated in this paragraph. See above for more information on clock speed in general.

The clock speed of the RAM that comes with the PC. This is one of the parameters that determine the capabilities of RAM: with the same amount and type of memory (see above), a higher clock frequency will mean faster performance. However such details are rarely required by an ordinary user, but they are important for enthusiasts and professionals.

Also note that this indicator can be used to determine the possibilities for upgrading the system: the motherboard will be able to work normally with brackets that have the same or lower clock frequency, but compatibility with faster memory should be specified separately.

The volume of the main drive supplied with the PC. For models with combined storages (for example, HDD+SSD, see "Drive type"), in this case, the main one is considered to be a more capacious hard drive; and if there are two HDDs in the kit, then they usually have the same capacity.

From a purely practical point of view, the more data the drive holds, the better. So the choice for this indicator rests mainly on the price: a larger capacity inevitably means a higher cost. In addition, we recall that SSD-modules in terms of gigabytes of capacity are much more expensive than hard drives; so you can only compare carriers of the same type by the combination of volume and cost.

As for the specific capacity, a volume of 250 GB or less in modern PCs can be found mainly among SSDs. Hard drives of this size are almost never found, for them a capacity of 250 to 500 GB is still considered quite modest. 501 – 750 GB is a pretty good value for an SSD, and among them it is also mainly used. 751 GB — 1 TB is an impressive figure for an SSD and an average for hard drives, 1.5 – 2 TB is a very solid capacity even for an HDD. And a very high capacity — more than 2 TB — paradoxically, is found even among pure SSDs: such drives are installed in high-end workstations, where speed...is no less important than capacity.

The number of internal 3.5" component bays in the computer. This form factor is standard for hard drives, and is also often used in other types of drives; accordingly, the more bays, the more drives you can install on your computer.

Paying attention to the number of internal 3.5" bays makes sense, first of all, if you purchase a configuration without drives or plan to upgrade your PC in the future. It is worth noting that it is recommended to install drives not in a row, but through one slot — for cooling efficiency ; so ideally the number of slots should be twice the number of devices to be installed.

The number of full size USB 2.0 connectors provided on the front of the PC.

USB is the most popular modern interface for connecting peripherals. And the number of connectors is, accordingly, the number of devices that can be simultaneously connected to the front panel without the use of splitters. Specifically, version 2.0 was the most popular some time ago, but now it is considered obsolete, it is gradually being replaced by more advanced standards like USB 3.0 (3.1 gen1). However, USB 2.0 capabilities (data transfer rates up to 480 Mbps) are still sufficient for many peripheral devices, from keyboards and mice to printers. So this standard is still far from completely disappearing, and some PCs may have several of these ports on the front panel at once.

Separately, it is worth noting that similar connectors are most often available on the back of the case. However, the front panel is closer to the user, and the sockets on it are optimal for peripherals that need to be connected and disconnected frequently, such as flash drives.