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To Quad Core or to not Quad Core.....that is the dilemna!

Jonny L said:
But as I have said, if you read the article, valve has said that the games they will be bringing out mid next year or so will work better with quad core than with dual core.
Jonny
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Yeah I did read that and I'd be impressed if they do manage to pull it off and utilize all four cores at the same time. As I said, games do not scale well due to their non parallel behaviour. See here :

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34916

Time will tell. Upgrade to quads if you like, but I believe dual cores will be the same as quads for gaming if not better due to higher clocked cores.

My 2p.
 
As a general principle, I have always believed that its generally better to only buy hardware when you are immediately receiving the benefit from it, not with a view to saving you from an upgrade in the near future (i.e. 12 months or so).

Given the pricing of processors and in particular the quad cores this seems the most cautious way of proceeding. So unless you do lots of video encoding etc, I'd avoid until there is actual real world evidence of games benefitting significantly. By that point in time, I'd also guess the quad cores will be a lot cheaper :)
 
trojan698 said:
I'd wait for native quad core if I were you, only then will we probably see a marked improvement gaming wise.
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Aye, the botched job that Intel has made with their quad cores isnt really worth getting considering not a lot of support for it is available.
 
taz488 said:
imo games need to catch up, make something that will stretch dual core for god sake, then think about quad core.
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so true think there only one ture game for dual core support and that needs a patch

The Call of Duty ® 2
 
Is the difference twixt a 2.4GHz Conroe and a 2.93GHz Conroe that noticeable?

Is it worth getting upset about 30-odd fps when the figures are well over 90 anyway?

If I were buying a new system now (which, IMHO, is daft considering what we have coming up in the next six months in terms of both hardware and gaming) and didn't plan on upgrading for the next year, I'd buy a dual core system and spend the £300/400 saved two 8800GTXs or an enormous monitor or some silly SCSI drives in RAID0.

But there is absolutely no harm in quad core if you plan on keeping your system for a good, long while: it will scale nicely if you overclock it (assuming your PSU is up to it) meaning it will be able to power games well into next year and the year after and it will take advantage of multithreaded code that Valve, iD, etc. are planning.
 
By the time a quad core chips get anything approaching widespread games support (8-12 months as anything sooner than this will likley only be a code bodge) the price will have dropped by a third and the clock speeds increased by a similar ammount. If neither of those predictions bother you then go for it :)
 
Confusion said:
cancelled my quad core, will wait till they come down in price. Ive ordered a 6700 instead!!

should be plenty powerful enough.
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I would have got a 6600 myself. However i think you did the right thing. I think you have to be sensible and say do i really need it or is it just for bragging rights?

I was contemplating selling my x1900xtx and getting a 8800 gts. But then i thought do i really need it? and the answer was no. Just like the performance increase a quad core will give you over a 6600 is minimal but it is 3x the price!
 
im not a big overclocker, so i wanted the most speed for reasonable price.

even at default powered by a 8800gtx and a 150gb Raptor my new system will be screamingly fast.
 
**and not to mention Quake 4 works better with Quad core**

Hate to be annoying, but Quake four doesent have any significant or any gains at all for that matter going from dual core to quad core. :)

Mind you i cant remember if that was WITH or WITHOUT the dual core patch.
 
Yeh, right now I'm either thinking of getting a X6800 or a QX6800. I think quad core will benefit me as I'll be using it to do a lot of CPU 3d rendering in applications like Maya so the more cores the better I guess. However, I do still play games so its gotta be good for that too. As long as the QX6800 is samer price as the X6800, its probably a wiser decision for me to go quad core.
 
XtAsY said:
Yeh, right now I'm either thinking of getting a X6800 or a QX6800. I think quad core will benefit me as I'll be using it to do a lot of CPU 3d rendering in applications like Maya so the more cores the better I guess. However, I do still play games so its gotta be good for that too. As long as the QX6800 is samer price as the X6800, its probably a wiser decision for me to go quad core.
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dude don't get the X6800, I made that mistake already, I paid £750 for mine, I recently sold it and brought a E6300 as a temp until quad core is out but honeslty this 6300 is amazing, I've already got it running @2.6, I'm sure it will reach 3gig easy I just haven't tried yet, but even @ 2.6 I honestly can't tell the difference in game at all, maybie 2/3 fps max, trust me mate I've had one it it's not worth it, I am only now understanding why people enjoy overclocking so much, to take a £119 cpu and get it to run like a £650 model is really fun plus it saves you money :D
 
Confusion said:
I have ordered a quad core Kentsfield and im starting to have doubts to whether its worth it after looking more and more into the reviews.

There doesnt seem to really be any huge difference between them in terms of FPS (which is what is most important to me).

So basically im thinking about getting a Dual Core and a good H20 solution and still have £££ left over. Then when the quads have truly come into their own get one.

Or alternatively get the quad and have a cpu that will last me quite a while

:confused:
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quad core will come of age

just it hasnt yet. Have a read of the details of valve's SMP patch for source. They are making the engine deliberately scalable, so that as you increase cores, you increase performance for CPU based activities. There's nothing right now that can use all 4 cores, but give it time and they're will be.

But having said that your paying a premium for new kit you can't fully utilise yet. You could wait untill there's more stuff around that uses quad core and then buy into it, and inevitably cheaper as there will be no premium on it for being uber new :)
 
With all this talk of 'Quad-Core' can anyone supply some linkage of game benchmarks that show a marked improvement from even dual-core?
 
here are toms hardware benchmarks. notice very small difference

quake4.gif


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