Need Guidance to buy a CPU on Dual or Quad core Processors for gaming and light use.

Shoaib Jamal

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Jul 15, 2013
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This is going to be long and i will need a lot of explanation because i am a first timer and i will appreciate any support. Basically i need guidance on what to buy-dual core or quad core. I understand duals are in right now but will soon be replaced by quads for gaming. First-what is the major difference? Say i have a core 2 duo and core 2 quad both at 2.6 GHz. Does each core have a speed of 650 MHz in quad? (speed divided by 4) and 1.3 GHz in dual? (speed divided by 2) Or does each core has 2.6 GHz in both cases? Assuming a game requires 2 cores. The quad core allocates the two and gives the other 2 for other processes. Does the game have 1.3 GHz in quad and 2.6 GHZ in duo? Or does it have 2.6 on each core in both cases? If so, do i have an overall speed of more than 2.6? Another question: games require speed. Assuming i have a pentium 4 2.8 and core 2 duo 2.8, why would the core 2 duo be better? you know because they both offer the same speed to the game. People say you need more cores so that the extra may support the other processes like photoshop. I have two questions on this. One, i don't Photoshop i just use photoscape occasionally and surf the net, download movies, listen songs, work on MS office and of coarse, game. Do i need quad core? Two, when i close my firefox, and photoscape and any other program, doesn't the process end and the other cores do not have to support them? I mean, there is no process so why buy a quad core to support them when you game? If this the case, i want to buy a dual core for my dual core requiring games. So what is the best dual core processor keeping in mind money (i am low on budget-a bit too low so im leaning towards the dual core) and gaming performance and also seeing i only want to play dual core requiring games. Is it the intel core 2 duo e8400? And what is the best quad core processor keeping in mind money and gaming performance. is it the intel core 2 quad q6600? Again im extremely low on budget so i have a question. Can i just buy a good motherboard with the processor (without the ram and all) and put it in my current pentium 4 CPU? Or can i just buy the processor chip and place it in my current motherboard, although there is a problem in this: I have removed my pc casing but i cant identify if there are PCI e slots in it. What i see looks like just a PCI. How do you know if you have a PCI e slot? also if i dont have a pci e, can i add one separately with/without professional help. Do i need professional help installing a motherboard in a CPU or a processor chip in a motherboard? Now for the final question: Do you think gta 5 will run on dual core or quad core processor when it comes out on pc and what will be the assumed speed it will require? Thats all (finally) Thank you very much in advance. I trust Toms Hardware for an answer (a rather long one) thanks for your precious time in advance.
 
It would be great if you formatted that, a large wall of text isn't all that easy to read and I probably missed a fair bit.

Each core runs at the speed written on the processors box, its not a case where all the cores add up to the advertised speed. You could when overclocking set it so that the cores run at different speeds, but you wouldn't want too.

One misconception you seem to have is that Clock Speed (and even core count to an extent) are indicative of performance amongst different CPU architectures. Not so, you cant compare a Pentium 4 and Core 2 Duo based on clock speed as they have entirely different underlying CPU architectures. If you were comparing a Core 2 Duo @ 2.4Ghz against another at 2.8Ghz, then you can use clock speed as an indicator of performance.

What you want to look at are benchmarks, that will determine which processor is better for your purposes.
 


+1

General rules of thumb: more cores/threads is better, but for gaming this stops at 6 threads. And newer architecture is always better than old. Clockspeed doesn't matter that much as long as you're over 2.5GHz.
 

Hey thanks for the reply and advice but i don't think i can shorten it because i need to ask everything to be clear. Anyhow thanks but it sadly didnt help much as most of my questions were unanswered of coarse because of my fault and not yours.
 
The issue isnt the length of your post, thats nothing compared to I read here, just the clarity.

Make paragraphs, ton easier to read than one dense cluster of text. And if you have a lot of questions, bullet point them instead of scattering them through said dense cluster of text.
- Its a lot easier
- To see questions when
- they are
- like this
 
I am a game developer...

1.) Dual cores are not "in" right now...they've been on the way out for at least 12 months now.

2.) Quad cores are really the minimum for gaming moving forward.

3.) If you intend to multitask a quad core will serve you better than a dual core.

4.) Your questions about clockspeed per core are a bit baffling...if the CPU says 4.0 GHz, then it will run at 4.0 GHz on all cores not at a slower rate per core to total 4.0 GHz.

5.) There is no scenario in modern day usage...outside of solitaire and web browsing...that a dual core makes any sense. Especially if you're looking toward the future at all.

6.) You could format your posts better, as it's very convoluted to stare at a text wall, and I myself found that it was beginning to give me a headache before I finished typing this post.
 


Yeah sorry. I guess they are.
 


Sorry about you're headache. Take some aspirin, paracetamol, whatever. Although after such a ridiculously late reply, I should think you had already done so ages ago. 😀