Dual vs Quads

[rahul babaria]

The i3 and i5 Series have Dual cores as well as quadcores, so did the E and Q series.Some Higher clocked dual cores are more powerful than Quad cores for eg i5 661 is more powerful than i5 750.SO I am ASKING whats the benefit of taking a Quadcore when powerful dual cores are their in the same price tag ?

 

[andy5174]

Have a glance at this first.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=109&p2=118&c=1

 

[DeathAbyss]

I am not very knowledgeable in this field, but I did a quick search on google, and I found:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/09/choosing-dual-or-quad-core.html
Apparently, clock speed would give the greater advantage, but if the clock speed were the same, then the more cores you have would increase your performance.
This means, clock speed > # of cores
The benefit of choosing a quad core over a more powerful dual core may be the following:

For 3D/compositing workstations, a quad-core CPU (or dual-CPU quad-core) does substantially speed up rendering.

So it seems that for general usage, a higher clocked dual core would be more efficient than a lower clocked quad core.
Hope that answers your question.

 

[shubham1401]

The i3 and i5 Series have Dual cores as well as quadcores, so did the E and Q series.Some Higher clocked dual cores are more powerful than Quad cores for eg i5 661 is more powerful than i5 750.SO I am ASKING whats the benefit of taking a Quadcore when powerful dual cores are their in the same price tag ?

Good question

Upcoming games/applications will be more suited for Quad cores.

There are many things in which 4 Cores have a big advantage over 2 cores.

Further, Quads can be overclocked to those dual core level(Without any effort!!) but duals can't create 2 more cores anytime(Some Phenom/Athlon II are exceptions as they have locked cores but we're talking about Intel here )

 

[warmon6]

The i3 and i5 Series have Dual cores as well as quadcores, so did the E and Q series.Some Higher clocked dual cores are more powerful than Quad cores for eg i5 661 is more powerful than i5 750.SO I am ASKING whats the benefit of taking a Quadcore when powerful dual cores are their in the same price tag ?

Well, it really depends on the app your using if a quad or a dual core is better.

If your using a program that can only use 2 cores. The faster dual core cpu will be better.

If the program you use can run on 4 cores, the slower quad core will get the task done faster than the faster dual core.


http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=117&p2=109&c=1

As you see in this link i gave, the 2 cpus trade blows.

 

[jsc]

As time goes by, more and more software is going to support multicore CPU's.

There are very few places where I would still use a dual core CPU.

 

[unknown_13]

Every app out there in the future WILL have a benefit from multi core CPU's😉

Even for the new king of the hill the Core i7 980x there are several apps that take benefit from 6 cores and one game: Napoleon Total War

 

[Mousemonkey]

The same argument using the same pro's and cons and has been going for what, four years now? Ever since the Q6600 was released.

 

[enzo matrix]

*See old arguments of single core vs dual core in 2004*

Edit: 2005

 

[enzo matrix]

I am not very knowledgeable in this field, but I did a quick search on google, and I found:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/09/choosing-dual-or-quad-core.html
Apparently, clock speed would give the greater advantage, but if the clock speed were the same, then the more cores you have would increase your performance.
This means, clock speed > # of cores
The benefit of choosing a quad core over a more powerful dual core may be the following:

For 3D/compositing workstations, a quad-core CPU (or dual-CPU quad-core) does substantially speed up rendering.

So it seems that for general usage, a higher clocked dual core would be more efficient than a lower clocked quad core.
Hope that answers your question.

That information is nearly 3 years old and not as reflective today as it was back then. It's like when dual cores first came out, a powerful single core was preferred. The technology has had time to mature and a lot more applications utilize multiple cores. This is especially true in newer games. Games even a couple years back were found to have gains up to 3 cores even if the 3-core was slower. A few games ran faster on the higher clocked dual though. (see tom's "Building a balanced gaming PC Part II"). Even so, you are forgetting that most people will be running more than one application at once.
The benefit of taking a quad core is that applications now and in the future that are capable of utilizing multiple cores will benefit more than from the higher clock speed. A single threaded application will run slower on the slower quad though. But the slower quad offers better multi-tasking (running more applications at the same time) and better gaming in new games (prime examples: Dragon age, GTA4 and FSX).

 

[warmon6]

That information is nearly 3 years old and not as reflective today as it was back then. It's like when dual cores first came out, a powerful single core was preferred. The technology has had time to mature and a lot more applications utilize multiple cores. This is especially true in newer games. Games even a couple years back were found to have gains up to 3 cores even if the 3-core was slower. A few games ran faster on the higher clocked dual though. (see tom's "Building a balanced gaming PC Part II"). Even so, you are forgetting that most people will be running more than one application at once.
The benefit of taking a quad core is that applications now and in the future that are capable of utilizing multiple cores will benefit more than from the higher clock speed. A single threaded application will run slower on the slower quad though. But the slower quad offers better multi-tasking (running more applications at the same time) and better gaming in new games (prime examples: Dragon age, GTA4 and FSX).

Well said. 😉

 

[andy5174]

The same argument using the same pro's and cons and has been going for what, four years now? Ever since the Q6600 was released.

Four years ago, people were talking about the future proof of quad.

However, we are having the "future proof" mentioned 4 years ago now and so it is not future proof anymore.

The potential performance gain of the quad has been shown due to most apps utilizing more than 2 cores now.

proof:
i5-750 quad core v.s. i5-661 dual core
It shows that the lower clocked quad beats higher clocked dual almost everywhere.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Four years ago, people were talking about the future proof of quad.

Four years ago people were also talking about the imminent demise of the dual core CPU and how the 775 was likely to be the last socket to see a dual because everything would be four cores and more after that as MT software was "just around the corner". Don't read me wrong, I am on my second Quad now and I wouldn't give it up for anything less than a six core CPU but I still don't subscribe to the belief that everyone must have a Quad because Dual cores are dead.

 

[gamerk316]

Four years ago, people were talking about the future proof of quad.

However, we are having the "future proof" mentioned 4 years ago now and so it is not future proof anymore.

The potential performance gain of the quad has been shown due to most apps utilizing more than 2 cores now.

proof:
i5-750 quad core v.s. i5-661 dual core
It shows that the lower clocked quad beats higher clocked dual almost everywhere.

Thats a silly comparison and you know it: The Quad in this case is handicapped by the FSB, and the i5 is a newer architecture, and is slightly faster on an instruction by instruction basis to begin with. Apples to Oranges that one is.

Fact is, I said it two years ago: Duo's are dead. Lets fact it, at this point, even games have started to make use of 4 cores, and software engineers are starting to write code that scales to the number of CPU's [as opposed to simply code for two].

Of course, a highly clocked Pentium 4 still beats everything 😀

 

[warmon6]

Of course, a highly clocked Pentium 4 still beats everything 😀

8 ghz on LN2 was its? 😀

 

[uncfan_2563]

8 ghz on LN2 was its? 😀

does it run crysis? literally tho.. would an 8 GHz P4 still be able to avoid bottlenecks in modern games?

 

[andy5174]

Thats a silly comparison and you know it: The Quad in this case is handicapped by the FSB, and the i5 is a newer architecture, and is slightly faster on an instruction by instruction basis to begin with. Apples to Oranges that one is.

Fact is, I said it two years ago: Duo's are dead. Lets fact it, at this point, even games have started to make use of 4 cores, and software engineers are starting to write code that scales to the number of CPU's [as opposed to simply code for two].

Of course, a highly clocked Pentium 4 still beats everything 😀

You have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.

The two CPUs in the link provided by me are both NEW architecture and the dual even come with better architecture.

However, even the dual i5 come with better architecture, it still lose to quad i5.

who is the silly guy here?

 

[Mousemonkey]

Fact is, I said it two years ago: Duo's are dead. Lets fact it, at this point, even games have started to make use of 4 cores, and software engineers are starting to write code that scales to the number of CPU's [as opposed to simply code for two].

C'mon mate, even though dual core CPU's will eventually go the way of the single core CPU it hasn't happened yet and whilst there are still a lot of PC users out there that don't game and don't use software that benefits from MT both companies have and will produce and sell dual cores.

 

[rahul babaria]

Best answer selected by Rahul Babaria.