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Dual core vs quad core 2.0

morguk

morguk

morguk

Associate
Joined
5 Dec 2007
Posts
1,258
Hey guys,

When I last built a system a few years back (C2D e6750) I decided to go with a dual core. Simply because, 2 cores running at a faster speed was generally better than 4 cores running slower.

What's the deal now? Are all the games multi-core?

Another thing that confuses me is i3 and i5 (sandy). Have I read it wrong or do both chips have 2 cores and 4 threads total? So what's the difference? Just the HT and whatever?

I'm pretty confused at the moment and if you guys could recommend the best CPU I would be grateful! I'm going to be playing BF3 and Rift.

Cheers.
 
Hi there,

These days most games do make use of more than two cores, but the performance increase provided by more than two cores varies greatly between games. That said - if you are buying a new system, then I would strongly suggest going for a Quad core instead of a fast dual core, you get better performance overall and your system will last longer.

Battlefield 3 will be using the Frostbite 2.0 engine - which is an evolution of the engine used in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. That game was very CPU hungry and made good use of quad cores.

As for i3 and i5 sandy bridge - some of the i5s and all of the i3s are dual core chips. They also make use of an intel technology called "Hyperthreading" which produces two virtual cores per physical core and in heavily multi-threaded application can yield up to 25% performance increase compared to the same CPU without hyperthreading enabled. In games the performance increase will usually not be anything close to this much.

Also, please bear in mind that some of the i5 CPUs are in fact true Quad cores with hyperthreading disabled. These CPUs are excellent for gaming and perform on the same level of the £100 more expensive i7 quad cores in games (and most applications). The i5 2500K for example is the CPU most people are currently recommended to buy if they plan to game and have a decent budget. It is a very quick quad core and the multiplier is unlocked to allow for some nice overclocking (aim for 4.5GHz), here is an in-depth review.

If you are not buying the upgrades for a while then also look out for then new Bulldozer CPUs from AMD, they will be released later this year and promise to be a big step forward compared to current generation AMD high-end CPUs.
 
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