The Mother Board

[mcraghead]

I was investigating a CPU for a new build and had identified two AMD Athlon 64 processors, both of which had the same specs with the exception of the stepping, in this case one was E3 and the other E6.

I looked all over the AMD site with no luck to finding the answer to my question...What is stepping? What is the bennifit of one over the other? Thanks.
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Michael K. Craghead

Nunca Pescao, Siempre Tiberon

[Karlsweldt]

Stepping is a technical wording for a different class of identical unit, only one feature perhaps being different in itself. Each CPU may have the same cache level, but a different FSB requirement.. or it could be identical FSB ratings, but a different cache level. Or dual-core versus single-core, HT feature versus not active.
Check the AMD site for exact specs to compare each model. Same with Intel.
The more L2 cache, the faster one CPU will be in comparison to an identical one with less L2 cache. The L1 and L2 cache are duty-bound to storing instruction sets for programming, so the CPU does not have to return to the programming to read how to perform every step.