Dual Core..?

[IwantanewPC]

How much more powerful is dual core as opposed to single?

Should I buy a system (base unit) now for £750 and skip dual core or should I save up some more and do the dual route?

Info! I need info!

 

[Monstermunch]

Just to give you an idea of how seriously game developers are taking dual core, they have just released a dual core patch for Quake4 which is reporting 60% speed increase over single core.

Does that answer your question?

Buying now and not buying dual core would be money wasted IMO.

 

[chex]

if you're buying now theres no reason not to go dual core

 

[IwantanewPC]

Will I be able to get a base unit (including a Dual Core Processor) that will play all the latest games and be reasonably (1-2 years) future proof for £800?

 

[Cyanide]

Will I be able to get a base unit (including a Dual Core Processor) that will play all the latest games and be reasonably (1-2 years) future proof for £800?

It won't be completely future proof, as DX10 will require new graphics cards early next year. But apart from that it's entirely possible, just get a decent processor, ram and m/b and you should be fine. That was my excuse for spending so much!

 

[ajgoodfellow]

Will I be able to get a base unit (including a Dual Core Processor) that will play all the latest games and be reasonably (1-2 years) future proof for £800?

Yes.

How about:

MB-088-AS Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£59.95 £59.95
MY-006-OK OcUK Value 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-006-OK)
£94.95 £94.95
HD-047-WD Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 160GB 1600JS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-047-WD)
£44.95 £44.95
CD-026-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£25.95 £25.95
GX-048-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£194.95 £194.95
CA-040-AN Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN)
£65.95 £65.95
CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£182.95 £182.95
Subtotal £669.65
VAT £117.19
Total £786.84

Quick X2 3800+ processor, 2GB of ram, fast 160GB SATA II hard drive, DVD-RW, fast current gen graphics card (that'll play all of the latest games at full detail without any problems) and a decent case with a good quality ATX2.0 PSU, as recommended for PCI-E systems

 

[Monstermunch]

^^^^^^As AJ says above, although I would be tempted to change to mobo to the MSI Neo4 just because it's much much better for overclocking if you want to do it!

 

[IwantanewPC]

Are there any compatibility problems with Dual Core?

Will I be able to play older games as well as newer? Games such as RA2 etc?

 

[squiffy]

Shouldn't be. I've played the original "Doom" no problems at all.

 

[ajgoodfellow]

Are there any compatibility problems with Dual Core?

Will I be able to play older games as well as newer? Games such as RA2 etc?

There can be problems with stuttering in some games. If you install the dual core drivers and patches for windows this helps to solve this problem.

If it persists you can always set the affinity of the process

 

[Soul Rider]

Just to give you an idea of how seriously game developers are taking dual core, they have just released a dual core patch for Quake4 which is reporting 60% speed increase over single core.

Does that answer your question?

Buying now and not buying dual core would be money wasted IMO.

Any links to this patch story? Would be interesting to read up...

 

[Raikiri]

Any links to this patch story? Would be interesting to read up...

Google, comes up with loads of results.

First one shows speed increases of around 20% on Nvidia cards and up to 50% on ATi cards (Don't know why it is better on ATi)

 

[IwantanewPC]

If it persists you can always set the affinity of the process

?

 

[Agent WD40]

?

CTRL+ALT+Delete and then tell it which core to use on the processor there for getting rid of any worries about there being compatability issues.

Agent.

 

[ajgoodfellow]

If it persists you can always set the affinity of the process

?

You can tell windows what CPU to use for your program

If you load up Task Manager (press Ctrl+Shift+Esc together) and click on the "Applications" tab you'll see the currently running programs listed.

Right click on your game and click "Go to process". You can then right click on the process and go to "Select Affinity" - this will allow you to uncheck one core of your CPU. This will solve the stuttering problem

 

[vanandjuanunited]

Ctrl Alt Delete
Task manager
Processes - find process ie Cod2.exe
Right click on it and set affinity. ie which processor it is to use.

 

[keyser]

It won't be completely future proof, as DX10 will require new graphics cards early next year. But apart from that it's entirely possible, just get a decent processor, ram and m/b and you should be fine. That was my excuse for spending so much!

Well, you'll still be able to play DX10 games, but you'll have to disable some of the feautres that DX10 based games will have.. like now with PS3.0 not being supported on all gfx cards.. just disable it and play on. As is my understanding of DX10. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

As far as dual core goes I dunno I've not been on here recently, but I've not seen the '60% faster quake 4' using dual core. Just remember that 60% isn't twice as fast - so spending twice as much on dual core imo isn't the best price/performace pay off.