Dual Core vs. Quad Core

edunham

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I know this question has been asked before, but I only saw the thread from 2007. Now in 2009 when quad cores are reasonably priced, is there there a performance boost from a quad core at a lower speed than a dual core at a higher speed. I'm thinking of a Phenom 9600 (+/-) vs. Athlon X2 6000. I don't do gaming, but I do some DVD burning/editing from a camcorder (AVCHD format). My current single core processor gets bogged down when I do this and has become unstable (reboots, or causes an error and closes the program). Also, what memory (800 vs. 1066) works better with these and which motherboard should I consider?
 

edunham

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OK, let's say a dual core X2 6000 since I really want the speed and I can not afford a Intel i7 right now. If I get a mobo with 4 or 8 GB RAM (and a 64 bit Vista OS so I can utilize the additional RAM), you think I'll have enough giddyup to do video processing/editing? My main question was if quad core was worth it performance wise if I am only doing one thing at a time but it is a data intensive program, will four cores help or am i just wasting them.

Secondly, I have read about matching the speed of the RAM, FSB, CPU so what combo should I consider to get the best matching system even if they are not the fastest on the market now.

 

werxen

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thats the most laughable statement ever.
 

ulysses35

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2 years after its original release and the Q6600 is still quicker than a lot of the current AMD chips...

Admittedly the Q6600 is not as good as the newer 775 Quads or the I7 BUT... it still gives AMD fanboys a run for their money.
 

ulysses35

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The best quad core chip out there.....now thats funny.

The Q6600 is overpriced and out dated. Its 65nm, requires a significant voltage increase to get past 3ghz and runs too hot. Besides, if you build a socket 775 system, its virtually non-upgradeable.

If you want to go the 6000+, which I dont particularly recommend, at least you will be able to drop in a Phenom 2 later on.


Q6600 is an older chip... but still performs well against the current Phenom's... and more than holds its own agaisnt your E6300
 

werxen

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lol i dont know anybody on this forum that would get a Q6600 over a p2. wake up noob - Q6600 is old and outdated.
 

B-Unit

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You have to be careful comparing the old Athons (6000's and down) to Phenom1 (and II for that matter) as a Phenom at 2.6-2.8Ghz will equal at least, if not beat, the Athlons at 3.0-3.2 Ghz. Your best bet if you want to save $$ and go dual-core is the Athlon 7750. Its Phenom based and cheeper than the 6000. There are also PhenomII dual cores comming in April or May if you can wait a couple months.
 

ulysses35

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Q6600 is old.. accepted but they are still performance comparable to most of the current AMD range

I suggest you go read some non biased benchmarks
 

shady28

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I had to look at the dates of these posts, as everyone is really talking about old chips here.

All this really depends on what you want to do and how much you have to spend. If your primary thing is gaming, then I'd suggest the E8400/E8500/E8600 series. These are the newest architecture for Core 2 Duo processors (probably the last of the socket 775 processors), and are about 10% faster clock for clock than the older E6400 etc series. In other words, an E8400 at 3.0Ghz stock will be about 10% faster than an E6850 at 3.0Ghz stock speed.

If you do a lot of multitasking, video / audio encoding, Linux kernel compiles, etc you'll probably be best served by more cores. Your best bet in low priced quad cores is pretty clearly the Phenom II 920 / 940. The triple core 710 / 720 are also very good as a compromise spot. Again, this depends even more specifically on what kind of software you use. For example, if you do all your encoding on iTunes, the E8xxx series is better than most quad cores because iTunes isn't heavily threaded.

I only see the Athlon X2 series being competitive at the bargain basement price points - ie if you want a $30 - $70 CPU, Athlon X2 is probably your best bet. At this price point, only the Intel E2xxx series is available and the Athlon X2's will usually handily beat them.

All this is assuming no overclocking. I wouldn't recommend overclocking to anyone, despite all the hype you see on these forums about it.
 

meodowla

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I've a desktop with Athlon64 X2 6000+ showing processor rating of 5.6 in Vista.
And a laptop with Intel T9300 showing processor rating of 5.2 in Vista.
 

cadder

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I've been running AMD's at work and at home for the past 8 years. I've had my fill, served my time, put up with slow computers long enough, my new home and work computers are Intel.

Seems that lots of people are still AMD fans. I don't know much about the new AMD's or how they actually compare speed-wise. But I found some benchmarks on Tom's. Without me spending a ton of time looking at numbers, I've saved the itunes encoding times for lots of their builds. They tested a Phenom II 940 recently at 3.64GHz. All 8 of the Intel systems I had saved results for beat the Phenom in this test. Their E5200 completely wiped out the Phenom. Strangely though the machine the beat it the least was the Q6600 at 3.5GHz. Interesting to me was that the difference in benchmark results was exactly the same as the difference in clock speeds.
 

turboflame

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Getting any LGA775 CPU is a bad move, with LGA1336 and AM2+/AM3 you have upgrade options down the road. LGA775 will be completely dead once i5 launches later this year.

The Phenom 2 quad cores are still at least as fast / often faster as the Q6600 and cost about the same so there is really no point in even bringing it up as an option. Also P2 X3 > E8X00.

 

jivdis1x

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for the same price ,45nm and faster stock clock it's best to move up to the Q9550. The Q9550 can be OC to 3.6easy w/ the new stepping.

For video transcoding, it's best to have the fastest clock you can get regardless of dual or quad. With a quad, your system is more responsive when a processor intensive program is running like transcoding. Some media creation tools are using multiple cores. Nerovision for example uses 2 cores. In the long run, quad core will benefit more in your case.
 

cadder

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Got your links right here:

This link has the Phen2-940:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-phenom-ii,2119.html
This link has the E5200:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-e5200-radeon,2144.html

I pulled out some of the numbers. I don't know everything behind some of
the different benchmarks, and how much these rely on the CPU vs. the hard
drive, memory or GPU.
Some of the numbers jump around a bit, but the $72 processor beat the $220 processor on a few of the tests.
Phenom2 940 E5200
sandra xii arithmetic
dhrystone 58804 29846
whetstone 43231 27955

sandra xii multimedia
int x8 210343 247628
float x8 276136 114780

3dmark vantage
cpu 12472 7236

pcmark vantage
system 5718 5502
productivity 5950 5080

a/v encoding
itunes 1:04 0:55
lame 2:04 1:41
tmpge divx 4:01 5:22
tmpge xvid 3:23 2:50
mainconcept 1:50 3:22

avg antivirus 4:08 7:12

winrar 1:59 3:03

winzip 5:03 1:37
 

cadder

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The E5200 beat the Phenom in the following tests (5 out of 15). I seem to remember this particular E5200 was running at or close to 4.0GHz. They list the Phen at 3.6 to 3.7GHz, depending on where they wrote it. The Phen won more than it lost, and some of them by big differences. The E5200's at their overclock limit perform all out of proportion to their cost.

(Phen number first, E5200 number second)
sandra xii multimedia
int x8 210343 247628 (bigger is better)

a/v encoding (smaller is better)
itunes 1:04 0:55
lame 2:04 1:41
tmpge xvid 3:23 2:50

winzip 5:03 1:37 (smaller is better)
 

erdinger

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I think the E5200 is a great choise for overclockers and can compete with the AMD Athlon X2 7750. If you go for dual dore take the E5200 and overclock it cause it saves you allot of money and doesn't need much electricity(cheap ram+mainboard).

I you want to go for Quad core the forget the Lga 775 quads. you won't ever be able to upgrade them and the I7 just outperform them.

I personally would go with the E5200 (if overclocking) or the AMD Athlon X2 7750 (if not or only a liitle) cause you said you don't do multi tasking and they will sure be enogh for gaming or single apps.....

Another possibility would be the E8400 overclocked (4.0-4.5ghz) It will beat most quads in games but still running with an Lga775 Motherboard it won't be that expensive
 

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