The Dual-Core vs. Quad-Core debate

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Vertigon

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For gods sake buy a Q9450 at least, I mean why rob yourself of 6mb of cache or two whole cores if you don't have to. Is it all that hard? Also as for "todays" benchmarks, how many people actually upgrade their CPU more than once a year? I use mine for at LEAST two years, no way I'd buy a dual core in todays market.
 

PhobetorXVII

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so what i also can do all those stuff with my e6600 i tryed to run 2 games (cod4 and r6v2) + google earth and lots of programs working everything worked smooth.
 

scyle

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My reasoning why getting a Quad would be better:

1. You cant add more cores to a dual core, but you can overclock a quad. Meaning that if you get a dual, you're stuck with 2 cores.

2. Quads are technically better value for money. Take the Q9450 for example. Its 2.66ghz with 4 cores, for $360, which is $33.8 per ghz (360/ (2.66x4) ), thats $90 per core. Compare that to the Dual Core E8400. Thats $33.33 per ghz, or $100 per core. The Q9450 is only 400MHZ slower than the E8400, but has two extra cores for 80% more of the original price (360-200 / 200 X 100). TWO EXTRA CORES.

3. Software is going to only get more multithreaded, and quads are not that far behind duals in terms of performance to warrant getting a dual over a quad.


Reasons why to get a dual:

1. They are cheaper. Why buy cores you will barely use?

2. By the time software is really optimised by quads, the current quads will be obsolete.

3. The E8400 and co can hit 4ghz, the average quad cannot. Raw clock speed is still better for games.

4. Who watches a video while playing a game while surfing the web while decoding audio? Honestly do you really do 4 CPU intensive tasks at once on your computer?

Food for thought.
 


The Q6600 G0 is a 95w quad core. So are all of the Q9XXX series I believe. If AMD gets a 95w quad I will be suprised. Maybe with later steppings.

And I thought you swore to Deneb? Or is it if Nehalem is the better chip, and I doubt a die shrink of K10 will do wounders for it, you will get that?
 


Dual Core's with higher mhz is an AMD thing, intel offers quads around the same clock speed as the duals, its just not a difficult task for Intel with there current design, and since its now a core count trend now rather then mhz, the older your quad system gets, the more usage it will get to the extra cores and hence the longer usability/lifespan of usage, also thanks to AMD, slowing down the market :D .

The other factor is the upgrade path - dual now, quad later, the platforms are usually excellent for this too.
 

tjoepie

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I'm thinking of getting an E8500 and OC it to 4Ghz on air with relatively cheap 8mb DDR2 (no paging file in Vista 64).
Then next year I'll get a new MB with the new socket and a nahalem with probably mainstream DDR3 by then.
What do you think of this for a gamer? OR go for a slower Mhz quad now?
From what I read games now prefer faster duals vs slower quads.
What games use quads now anyway and what about the ones in devellopment like far cry 2 ?
 

conquerz

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Although I've chosen my cpu (see previous two posts)... keep the debate between duals and quads running. There are lot of people out there who are looking for reasons to get a quad. I'll post my results when I have the system up and running in about a week or two's time.
 
I find it interesting people are so willing to dump higher performing duals. With a pretty certain guaranteed oc of at least 10% (4Ghz vs 3.6Ghz) and people are downplaying it. Thats close to half a Gig in speed. Throw that out, and no oc, and AMD is right there with Intel. So, in otherwords, being as Ghz makes a huge difference whether youre doing single or mulithread, you cant discount it. And if it comes for free, and most times cheaper, and you dont use video encoding, then why wouldnt you want a faster cpu? In that case, just go AMD
 

boonality

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Wow long thread, and nobody mentioned Flight Sim X. That is a big reason to get a quad core over a dual. Also who doesn't do a ton of crap at the same time on their computer? I catch myself doing that all the time. Music and MS Outlook, and a whole crapload of IE windows, with a whole crapload of tabs each, plus about 4 instant messenger windows. And that's if I'm NOT doing anything productive to boot. A quad is an easy choice over a dual in MY mind.
 
Like has been posted, multi threaded and using alot of single threaded programs are two different things. Single threaded apps AND multi threaded both run faster at higher clocks, and currently, a dual is clocked higher than a quad, dollar for dollar, without ocing, and they oc higher as well, which only points to the ability that theyre underclocked moreso than a quad
 

boonality

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Well choose a dual then. Like the benchmarks show, duals BARELY beat quads in single threaded apps, and quads MURDER duals in multithreaded apps. dollar for dollar...quads ARE definately better. say what you want.
 

[:mousemonkey:2]Is that taken from personal experience?, because I have both the Q6600 and an E8400 and the quad is only quicker at video encoding for the most part.
 

boonality

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FSX... for gaming it's an exception and i do realize this. That doesn't discount the fact that a quad does scale better than a dual in terms of mult-threaded apps and multi-tasking.
 
If faster is being downplayed, and more cores are better, then its all heading into a blur. Once octo cores become commonplace, it wont matter which cpu you buy, AMD,Intel , cause more is better, and there wont be enough difference in usage to justify a faster cpu. Once we have these cpus, even heavily demanding encoding wont be an issue, then all it comes down to is price. So, if thats the future, Im waiting, cause I know 8 will end up being cheaper than 4
 

boonality

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Not exactly, but if you feel that way that's your choice to make.

As hardware becomes more robust, so will software. Hence the endless cycle that has always been. You won't be able to do more with things with more cores in the future, but those things will be able to do more themselves. This is a completely seperate debate though.

Basically if you want to debate the future of I.T. Nobody will disagree that more powerful hardware will be required because each software app. will become more robust. That will always be the case, it's no different than the old saying "the more you make, the more you spend".
 
But the difference here is that the more I make is a set amount, whereas, if you make more than that set amount (Ghz/clockspeed) youll have more to spend. At the current rate of multithreading growth, it just isnt keeping pace. In 1 year from now, octos will be here, or close, do you think software will come even close by then? It seems were nowheres near where we need to be now, even with just quads. Thats my point. Quads are the future, even octos, but its been how long since duals have been out, and multithreading just isnt there yet.
 

[:mousemonkey:5] I'll go along with that.
 

boonality

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For who? You?

Not me. The game I primarly play is multithreaded. The testing I do is multithreaded. Look at linux, it's been taking advantage of multiple CPU's for a good decade. And the apps scale to it as well. Just because your primary software choice (in the case probably a windows based game) runs better on a dual core, most certainly does not make a dual core better than a quad. That just is not true, no matter how you look at it. What IS true, and I agree, is that some (mostly windows based games) applications do not take advantage of it yet. But many other things do, so why limit yourself? specially when the price difference is not even 5% of the cost involved in a computer.
 
Thats just it, windows based doesnt take advantage of it. And sure theres other ways to find apps that will supercede windows apps, but for the most part, that isnt happening. M$ and Intel gives a measly 20 million for future investment of multithreading, thats no commitment. Going multi core is, at least by Intel. At this point in time, until we see advance ments that are multi threaded in common everyday Windows apps, the actual usage, or potential of multi core will be several curtailed, which is too bad, but it is the way it is. Quads are nice, Octos will be nicer, but until theyre given their ability to perform as they should by the main OS and apps that follow, theyll continually fall short of their true potential. Right now, one thing holds true above all, speed kills
 

boonality

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I do not disagree with your post, however my case is unique in that I will benifit more from a quad than a dual because 80% of what I do with a computer is with multi-threaded applications. And I cannot rule out that some other folks will also find themselves in my situation. A 3.0GHz Dual core will not perform as well as a 2.4GHz quad core for what I do. Granted how many people build, test, and break MS Exchange in their spare time? But also Flight Sim X is multi-threaded as well.
 

dingumf

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Here's my thought.

Dual cores can overclock easy, with cheap ram.

With the quad core Q6600 and some DDR2 800 ram you get up to 3.6 GHz (9 multiplier X 400 FSB {800/2=400 FSB} + some extra voltage)

3.6 GHz X 4 for long term is pretty good.

Quads aren't that bad at overclocking. You'll just need some expensive ram to push your FSB past 400 for a real good overclock.

You'll also maybe need some really good water cooling...


My Q9300 runs at 3.00 GHz fine.

Can't overclock further though.


Anywaaays... quad cores will be better for the long term seeing as how we already have the i7s with them virtual cores or what not.

Dual cores
 
^You necroed a age old thread.

Also a Core i7 can OC to 4.3GHz on air and the memory has ne relevance to the OCing since the CPUs speed is no longer tied to the FSB/memory FSB.

Soon there will be an age of low grade RAM and high OCing. But then again if you OC why get cheap RAM anyways?
 
this is all the same BS arguments like when the first dual cores came out - everyone with there high clocked single core thought duals were unnecessary etc and guess what - you were all dead wrong :D now is your turn again to be wrong - we got 8 threaded cpus and 6 physical cores coming soon - have fun with your 4ghz dual cores :D :D :D