Welcome to Omgili,
Omgili ( Oh My God I Love It ;) is a search engine for discussions. With Omgili you can find answers and solutions, debates, discussions, personal experiences, opinions and more... To learn more about Omgili click here.
This is a complete preview of the discussion as it was indexed by Omgili crawlers. Use this preview if the original discussion is unavailable.
Click here to view the original discussion.
[http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=269...]
Click here to search for discussions with Omgili discussions search engine.
 |
Quad core vs. dual core vs. single core? - Guru3D.com Forums
I'm looking to upgrade shortly, currently I have an Athlon 64 3000+ oc to 2.3GHz.
Back in the day I know there was talk of how not every application would support both the cores, so that one would just remain dormant the whole time.
Is that still true?
If I open up any program now regardless of how old or new it is will it utilize both the cores?
|
|
|
Dual cores are the most supported now.
|
|
Yea i would also like to know if quads are utilized now days?
IE would i be better off with a 200 dollar E8500 or a 350 dollar Q9450?
With 4870CF
sry op just thought i would save another thread asking same questions
|
|
|
Not many games use 4 cores yet with the exception of COD4, Unreal Tournament, and a few others (I don't remember which ones)
You'd be better off with a E8500 or E8400
|
|
Well, if you were to stack up the cores and have all the cpu power dedicated to run like one core(Not possible really, but just think about it), when it's the e7200 series, which both cores are at 2.53 ghz, put them together in the way I explained it, that's 5.06 ghz.
When you're buying a dual core though, you aren't getting 5.06 ghz, you're getting 2 2.53 ghz cores.
As of right now, I don't think that anyone could produce 5.06 ghz stock on a single core, Dual core is effective, and not horribly expensive as it used to be.
Same with quad cores, but dual cores are nice, because dual cores like the e8400, can be overclocked in the 4ghz range, and then some, Quad cores have a possibility of getting this high, but the ones that can are either very lucky, or not to good on the wallet.
I say go with dual core.
|
|
|
@OP: if you plan on keeping the cpu for a few years then buy a quad-core.
_A-C-3_ If you plan on running high spec sli then you'll definately be better off with a quad.
|
|
Quote: : @OP: if you plan on keeping the cpu for a few years then buy a quad-core.
What he said. Otherwise, a dual-core is enough.
|
|
|
Ditto.
|
|
Quote: : I'm looking to upgrade shortly, currently I have an Athlon 64 3000+ oc to 2.3GHz.
Back in the day I know there was talk of how not every application would support both the cores, so that one would just remain dormant the whole time.
Is that still true?
If I open up any program now regardless of how old or new it is will it utilize both the cores?
A dualcore would be a good investment
|
|
|
List showing scaling among processors in Race Driver Grid
LIST - Processors
|
|
Just some food for thought.
I've got a a Q6600 in one rig running Vista and a E8500 in another rig running XP SP3 and a E4600 in another rig running XP SP3.
I use them for graphics intensive programs and operating printers.
I am in the sign business.
They all have good video cards (8800 GT and ATI 3870's) and I'm running them all in ANTEC Sonata 3 cases with 4GB of ram in all of them.
They all seem to run the same from seat of the pants.
I've played a few games on them, but I'm not a big gamer.
I don't really see much difference in all of them.
Whether stock or overclocked.
They are all overclocked usually.
I only downclock them when I have issues (and that's only the E8500 sometimes).
Nothing ever seems fast enough for me anyway.
When you are ripping a 400mg file to print, it's gonna take a few minutes.
Doesn't matter how fast your rig is.
I'm thinking the quad feels faster and I'm getting ready to upgrade the E4600 to a quad and bump that one down to server duty.
We'll see what happens.
|
|
|
Quote: : List showing scaling among processors in Race Driver Grid
LIST - Processors yeah except those guys arent all using the same graphics card setup, which has the highest impact on FPS...
plus the CPUs arent even clocked the same, some with the same CPUs have different
basically that list doesnt tell much because theres too many variables...
|
|
|
Yea useless bench...
get a quad and enjoy
|
|
Ok but my question still hasn't been answered.
Do all programs utilize a dual-core or if I wanted to say play...
Everquest for instance.
Would this utilize both the cores?
I just want to make sure i'm not gonna buy a dual core processor and then oops, it only uses one core with the games I play.
|
|
|
And BTW I don't use Intel processor so all these E numbers ur throwing out there mean jack to me.
|
|
|
Get the E8600; it just came out on newegg.com
|
|
Quote: : Ok but my question still hasn't been answered.
Do all programs utilize a dual-core or if I wanted to say play...
Everquest for instance.
Would this utilize both the cores?
I just want to make sure i'm not gonna buy a dual core processor and then oops, it only uses one core with the games I play.
Not all programs use quad core or even dual core.
However, when I look at the CPU Usage History graph in the Task Manager then I see CPU activity when playing games in all 4 cores with 1 or 2 cores having very high activity.
The other cores still are used moderately.
These are used by the OS or the background processes.
After quiting the game all CPU activity becomes extremely low.
So, I have the impression that during a game all cores are used.
I haven't seen a CPU usage of 100% even on one core while playing a game.
It leads me to believe that a quad core is a good choise.
Dual cores at the same clock speed may have been bottlenecked by that activity.
But dual cores can be clocked higher.
With current games the dual core processors with high clock rates can become faster than quad cores with a lower clock rate.
Like others said it is a good idea to invest in quad core, because in the next couple of years we will see better support for more than 2 cores.
The Intel processors current outperform the AMD processors.
Of course this may change in the near future, but we still do not know if or when AMD becomes more competitive again.
Currently the fastest AMD quad core is the 9950 Black Edition which runs at 2.6GHz and can be overclocked to 2.8GHz, 3.0GHz and beyond.
You need a good motherboard and CPU cooling for that.
Others may be able to advice you what motherboards to use if want to overclock and use AMD processors.
I am currently happy with mine, but I have read that there are others with a chipset that allow better or easier overclocking.
With AMD quad core processors you'll need a AM2+ socket.
Because this allows 1066 memory.
If you want to use the 9950 then make sure the motherboard supports 140W processors.
|
|
Quote: : Like others said it is a good idea to invest in quad core, because in the next couple of years we will see better support for more than 2 cores.
In 2 years I will move to quad.
|
|
Quote: : yeah except those guys arent all using the same graphics card setup, which has the highest impact on FPS...
640x480...
|
|
Quote: : 640x480...
Either way its hogwash, some amateur conducting his own review with unknown variables/conditions and coming out with results that contradict 99% of all other reviews out there.
|
|
|
|