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Guest
Guest
Okay so I've spent days researching the topic and still aren't completely sure. I'm basically building a relatively mid-budget Home/Office PC. I don't care about gaming performance but am primarily focused on Multi-tasking. I use my computer primarily for the following things, and usually all at the same time:
-Torrent downloading (always happening)
- P2P downloading (I try to stay away but I still use it fairly often)
- Web browsing inc. watching a lot of streaming video (usually have a ton of tabs open as well)
- Music playing (using media monkey right now but would like to be able to run iTunes if I need to)
- Document creation (standard MS office stuff)
- Virus protection and other small background programs
- Occasionaly I'll use photo/video editing software but it's pretty far and few between.
I would think that a quad core would be better for doing all of these things at once despite the fact that none of these programs multi-thread as far as I know. Simply for the fact that I don't believe most of these programs other than the photo-editing software require mass amounts of processing power. In other words the OS would run the multiple programs through different cores keeping them from essentially being cramed through the 2 cores of a duo. However I'm not sure if my reasoning is completely sound here since I'm still pretty new to this.
Anyway. My basic question is based on my use should I go for a quad core processor with lower clock rates or a dual core processor with higher clock rates. Two in particular I've been considering are the AMD Athlon II X4 630 (don't think I need the 3rd cache of the phenom since I won't be gaming) and the AMD Phenom II X2 550.
Any help or suggestions are appreciated.
-Torrent downloading (always happening)
- P2P downloading (I try to stay away but I still use it fairly often)
- Web browsing inc. watching a lot of streaming video (usually have a ton of tabs open as well)
- Music playing (using media monkey right now but would like to be able to run iTunes if I need to)
- Document creation (standard MS office stuff)
- Virus protection and other small background programs
- Occasionaly I'll use photo/video editing software but it's pretty far and few between.
I would think that a quad core would be better for doing all of these things at once despite the fact that none of these programs multi-thread as far as I know. Simply for the fact that I don't believe most of these programs other than the photo-editing software require mass amounts of processing power. In other words the OS would run the multiple programs through different cores keeping them from essentially being cramed through the 2 cores of a duo. However I'm not sure if my reasoning is completely sound here since I'm still pretty new to this.
Anyway. My basic question is based on my use should I go for a quad core processor with lower clock rates or a dual core processor with higher clock rates. Two in particular I've been considering are the AMD Athlon II X4 630 (don't think I need the 3rd cache of the phenom since I won't be gaming) and the AMD Phenom II X2 550.
Any help or suggestions are appreciated.