Zhuge_Liang
The greatest strategist
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- Sep 6, 2007
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What should I choose?
BTW, is Core 2 Duo and Dual Core the same?
thanks,
Zhuge
BTW, is Core 2 Duo and Dual Core the same?
thanks,
Zhuge
Quad Core or Dual Core?
- Thread starter Zhuge_Liang
- Start date
Aramazd
Deity
Quad Core.
A Core 2 Duo is a dual core. However, the Pentium D and the Athlon X2 are also dual cores.
If your just buying a new CPU, make sure your motherboard supports it.
A Core 2 Duo is a dual core. However, the Pentium D and the Athlon X2 are also dual cores.
If your just buying a new CPU, make sure your motherboard supports it.
taper
Meet Tux
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Oh boy, here we go again. Sorry if you get dragged into this.
If you have specific software needs right now or in the very near future that are designed for use with quad cores, then go ahead and get one. If you want general computing or most gaming, you'll have better performance at a lower price by getting a dual core. Software that can use a quad core to its potential is still limited, but growing, and will definitely be the future, but ones that aren't designed for them will actually run slower(per dollar spent) than a single or dual core. Don't be fooled by those wanting you to "future-proof" your pc either. It'll probably be cheaper to buy the range of chip you need now, and then buy a faster one in a few years if you need it rather than getting the top of the line today.
If you have specific software needs right now or in the very near future that are designed for use with quad cores, then go ahead and get one. If you want general computing or most gaming, you'll have better performance at a lower price by getting a dual core. Software that can use a quad core to its potential is still limited, but growing, and will definitely be the future, but ones that aren't designed for them will actually run slower(per dollar spent) than a single or dual core. Don't be fooled by those wanting you to "future-proof" your pc either. It'll probably be cheaper to buy the range of chip you need now, and then buy a faster one in a few years if you need it rather than getting the top of the line today.
Quad core, unless you want to save money by getting a significantly cheaper dual core.
Higher clockspeed dual cores will have marginal gains over quad cores in some situations.
Lower clockspeed quad cores will have significant gains over dual cores in some situations.
Higher clockspeed dual cores will have marginal gains over quad cores in some situations.
Lower clockspeed quad cores will have significant gains over dual cores in some situations.
I recently got a new pc and I went with dual core.
The thing is in order to really benefit from a quad core you need a game that has really good multi threading. But good balanced multi threading is generally hard to code. I'm not convinced current games do this effectively. Of course the industry is moving toward improving in this area, so the usefulness of more cores may increase.
Contrary to popular rumors about the usefulness of quad cores in multitasking, quad core is not an additional benefit to regular applications, because most applications only use the CPU in short bursts, and the chances of three applications needing a short burst of calculation at once is low. Generally its only one application that takes the cpu in one specific thread, and that causes your computer to become jittery on a single core machine. But having a dual core is enough to prevent that.
Of course there are task that can really benefit from multiple cores. For example, digital rendering can benefit from multiple cores, assuming that an application is built for it. If there is a specific cpu intensive task besides gaming that you use your computer for, then multiple cores will help, assuming your software is also written to take advantage of that.
The thing is in order to really benefit from a quad core you need a game that has really good multi threading. But good balanced multi threading is generally hard to code. I'm not convinced current games do this effectively. Of course the industry is moving toward improving in this area, so the usefulness of more cores may increase.
Contrary to popular rumors about the usefulness of quad cores in multitasking, quad core is not an additional benefit to regular applications, because most applications only use the CPU in short bursts, and the chances of three applications needing a short burst of calculation at once is low. Generally its only one application that takes the cpu in one specific thread, and that causes your computer to become jittery on a single core machine. But having a dual core is enough to prevent that.
Of course there are task that can really benefit from multiple cores. For example, digital rendering can benefit from multiple cores, assuming that an application is built for it. If there is a specific cpu intensive task besides gaming that you use your computer for, then multiple cores will help, assuming your software is also written to take advantage of that.
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Core 2 Duo isn't the same as dual-core. Dual-core is the more general term, referring to all CPU's with two processing cores. The Core 2 Duo is a type of dual-core CPU. Other examples include Athlon X2, Turion X2, Pentium Dual-Core, and Pentium D. Intel does pretty well with their marketing, but they do not have the only dual-core processors, nor are theirs necessarily the best choice.
There are more situations in which you'll gain the "marginal" (25% assuming 2.4 Quad vs. 3.0 Dual) performance bonus from dual-cores, however. Gradually more programs are being made that will take advantage of multiple cores, but ones that don't now likely never will.
And while it is true that you can get (very close to) a 60% bonus from the slower clock speed quad-core for applications that can take advantage of it, I'd still recommend checking to see if you have any applications that actually can take advantage of that power, and won't already be more than adequately served by the fast dual-core, before buying a quad core.
Of course the best situation is to get the fastest quad-core out there, which is just as fast as the fastest dual-core clockspeed-wise, but unfortunately the genetic scientists working on money trees haven't been successful yet. Or maybe they have - and just haven't told us
.Depends on your usage, I often run programs which run 2 cores at 100% for significant periods of time, a quad-core would help me greatly.
Again, this depends on usage, but gaming tends to be GPU limited when running benchmarks specifically at low quality settings, so most games will be indistinguishable between a Q6600 and an E8400.
A large quantity of non-gaming applications that take significant quantities of CPU time are either going to benefit directly from more than 2 threads, or will at least have the option of further multitasking with a quad core.
We're not debating Q6600 vs. E8400 for a word processing/surfing machine, it's stuff that going to tax the cpus which are worth taking into account.
Of course the best situation is to get the fastest quad-core out there, which is just as fast as the fastest dual-core clockspeed-wise, but unfortunately the genetic scientists working on money trees haven't been successful yet. Or maybe they have - and just haven't told us
Actually, the fastest quad-core is faster than the fastest dual core for everything (3.2 GHz vs. 3.166 Ghz, 1600 MT/s fsb vs. 1333 MT/s fsb).
edit2: Forgot about the X5272, dual core 3.4 GHz. In any case, you're right, processors ranging from $1000-$1500 aren't reasonable.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
Get a mobo that supports both quad and dual if you get dual. I went with a quad, mostly for bragging rights, and at an unclocked 2.4 ghz my Intel Q6600 fulfills all my needs, and enables me to run Crysis at max (along with my 8800GT which is slightly overclocked). If you get dual core go with a very good one. Beyond this however I am afraid I am not very knowledgeable.
I doubt that dual-cores have that big performance lead in any real world situation. Operating system and all other background processes should require enough CPU time to make the gap significantly smaller.
I agree that the difference in gaming between those two is very small. With Q6600 there's one thing to notice though: it generates lot of heat and if overclocked it requires a good cooling solution for both the CPU itself and for motherboard's power intake (is this the right term?).
Personally I'd rather get 45nm dual-core than 65nm quad-core unless I'd specifically would need those extra cores. With gaming their benefits are currently marginal and easily negated by price and overclockability of dual-cores.
The problem is, the performance doesn't scale that way.
The fact is, most of us, in most applications, will not see much of a practical difference between an application using a CPU core at 2.4GHz and one at 3.0GHz. Most of us simply don't run the kinds of software that would clearly show the margin -- like 3D video rendering or software compiling.
For games, which is what most of us are talking about when we're talking about performance because 99% of the other uses we have for our computers could be done just as effectively by a 663MHz Celeron, if there's a price point difference between two CPUs you're generally better of taking the cheaper one and sinking the difference into your video card and/or system memory.
The truth is that it all depends on the individual user and exactly what you'll be doing with the computer. if you're goingto be doing things like extensive photo and video editing, audio ripping, editing, and creation, compiling, or other CPU-intensive tasks for which software exists that takes advantage of multiple cores, you'll see decent gains from going quad-core. If you're just talking about games, you can probably get away with going dual-core and saving the money or putting it elsewhere. If it's for your grandma who just checks her email and plays Snood, it doesn't really matter and you can find a computer at a flea market to do that.
To answer the poster re: Core 2 Dup and dual-core, it depends. Intel has several lines of dual core CPUs. Core 2 Duo are the newest dual-core CPUs, though they have other lines called various things, like Pentium Dual Core. If you want to get a dual-core Intel chip, you should get a Core 2 Duo as even the slower chips have a newer, better architecture than the faster, non C2D chips, and are generally more energy efficient as well.
