Modern processors are much more complicated than old at-most-single-instruction-per-cycle processors. There are techniques collectively known as Instruction Lev

Modern processors are much more complicated than old at-most-single-instruction-per-cycle processors. There are techniques collectively known as Instruction Level Parallelism that enable a processor to execute several instructions in each cycle on each core. That, and a more efficient memory system, that keeps the processors from stalling, waiting for memory, are significant factors in performance. End of the day, what matters is the number of instructions executed in the unit of time, not the number of clock cycles. Clock frequency is just one factor in processor performance. A more efficient microarchitecture can easily beat a "faster" (clock speed-wise) processor, as it's been the case with Pentium 4's NetBurst vs Core.