

Is 1 Ghz In A Phone The Same As 1 Ghz In A Computer?

I’ve Always Wanted To Know:
Is 1 Ghz in a phone the same as 1 Ghz in a computer?



All Ghz (Gigahertz), a number commonly referred to as the “Speed” of the processor, are not created equal. Megahertz (Mhz) and now Gigahertz (Ghz) are a measure of the frequency of the processor clock. The faster the clock the more information can be processed in a given time. The problem is that all processors do not process information in the same way, and the kind of information that needs to be processed is different between a computer and a phone.

Think of it like a car and a tractor-trailer engine. While a car may have 150 horsepower and the truck may have 300 horsepower the car only carries around people while the truck has to haul thousands of pounds of cargo. The car, while only having half the horse power, will accelerate a lot quicker because it has to move far less. Think of the speed rating on a phone like the horsepower of a car.

You do less on a phone but you also need it to work on a battery and be light so it can have a lower Ghz rating while still “feeling” fast. The computer is more like a truck, you want the power to do many different things quickly but efficiency isn’t as big of a concern since it’s plugged into the wall or has a very large battery. If you were to put a 1 Ghz phone processor into a computer you would find that it ran extremely slow since desktop processors are designed to use more energy but also to process a lot more information per Ghz then a phone processor.