CPU Speed

[Christian]

In checking the new hardware requirements for ATX 2013 I note the CPU speed at 2.8Ghz. Alas my machine is 2.33Ghz but exceeds all the other hardware requirements. I think it will likely run a bit slow but otherwise will be ok. Any tech gurus out there wo can comment on this ?

[joelgilb]

Personally, I think ATX's recommendations of 2.8ghz, suggest that they really don't understand CPU's.

Had friends that had little or no trouble with very old, very slow PC's, with only minor speed issues (much slower5 than the PC's I list below).

Further a lot depends on the CPU manufacturer, multi-threading, high end graphics GPUs and other factors. CPU speed certainly isn't the only issue. AMD used to have actual lower CPU ghz speed ratings for some chips that were actually faster than the same rated Intel chip. To avoid consumer confusion on the speed, AMD sold these CPU's using a higher than actual CPU rating to allow a more direct comparison to the Intel rated CPU chips, even though they actually ran at a lower ghz..

Now I have an older PC with an Intel Q6600 2.4ghz Quad Core CPU (CPU Benchmark 2979) and now a new PC with an Intel I4770 quad core (CPU Benchmark of 10,101), essentially 3.4 times as fast. I must say that ATX 2012 runs better on the I4770 (still like crap though), but ATX 2013 runs at virtually the same speed on both machines.

[jshtax]

ATX 13 runs no faster than 2012. Just try a larger return.

[Jack from Ohio]

Operating system and program design are more important in the scenario.

[Guest Taxed]

Operating system and program design are more important in the scenario.

I think Drake knows that and that is why their program screams even on slow old computers??

I have not kept up with my programming skills from my youth but I hear that .Net and Java developed programs are much slower to execute due to the overhead of that environment??

[JohnH]

I think you are correct about Drake. They have figured out that the purpose of a tax program is to prepare an accurate tax return quickly. It doesn't need to be designed to launch a space shuttle.