Raw computing power?

[patryluk]

Hi, im completely new to this forum, and know very little about specifics of computer hardware, but have a question about computing theory.

I'm trying to create a computer with max raw processing power in terms of calculations per second, but trying to minimize cost at the same time.

1. The CPU is the best measure of a computer's computational speed, correct?
2. I notice some very expensive top of the line CPUs out there, but i would imagine that you pay a substantial premium for the fact that all that computational power is packed into one CPU.
3. But for a CPU that's not quite as good, would it be substantially less? Or do price and performance correlate linearly? Like if a 2ghz processor was $300 would a 1ghz processor be $150? Or would it more likely be alot cheaper because it's outmoded?
4. If my assumption in 3 is correct, is there a way to pool the processing power of multiple CPUs into one task? I know you could do so using multiple computers, but is there any way to pool multiple cpus/processing units into one computer? i.e. without having to get duplicates of hard drives, motherboards, power supplies for each?

If i sound like i dont know what im talking about, it's because i dont , thanks for the help!

 

[Motoxrdude]

You need to do a lot of research lol. But a good place to start is here:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

This site has the majority of processors out there and there synthetic benchmarks. A simple benchmark won't give you the full picture of a processors performance but it will give you a good ballpark comparision. It also breaks down processors performance to cost ratio.

For 4 what you are referring to is a cluster. Yes you can do it, but not in the sense you are thinking of. You can't take two low end computers and make a decent desktop, but you can delegate workloads to other computers for certain tasks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cluster

 

[FuryRosewood]

actually add on cards are becoming more potent than processors, such as graphics cards and the tesla compute cards... so it depends...can be a mix of things that contributes.

 

[Twiki]

Way it is now your head will be spinning if you try to compare performance vs cost because there's too much out there. Computing is better than ever in the past few years and you have quite a choice.

 

[mr.doom]

CPU raw power is nothing really. The first question is: what is that you want to do with this power?

Do you want to play games? Then you don't need that much processor power. Is it a video editing or CAD? Maybe Folding@Home or other distributed computing? Then you can think of the best processor you can afford. As FuryRosewood mentioned, computing with graphics cards is much more potent, than the one you can do with the CPU, not to mention that it is much more cost effective as well.

Performance is not linear to the price. A mid range processor, that costs ca. $200 will oftentimes have as much as 80% of the power of the one for $300. Same goes for the extreme editions of processors. You will not get 3x the performance of the $900 CPU vs. the $300 one.

General rule of the thumb is - avoid extreme ends of the computing spectrum. Don't buy the cheapest, but avoid the most expensive too. An extra 15% of performance will often costs as much as twice the price, or more.