why buy a dual core when quads are available?

[Perfect_Chaos]

Out of interest if you were gonna upgrade to an INTEL set-up now what would you choose?

Hard to say tbh, Im a gamer and havent had any luck with overclocking.

Depends whether the quads drop much over time compared to the wolfdale dual cores. Also it would depend whether there is much difference in clockspeed between whichever 2 cpu's i would be looking at.

I do video editing sometimes but game more than anything, then there is the dilemma if i were to go air cooling or watercooling. For the price of a case and a good water setup it could be the price of a good cpu & mobo.

 

[86JR]

I believe everyone who cares about the world should run BOINC, therefore quad for the way

 

[PCZ]

This tired old argument comes up time and time again.
Quads are cheap now get one, be done with it.

Only gamers still want fast duals if you aren't building a game PC get a quad.
How hard was that to work out.

 

[Perfect_Chaos]

This tired old argument comes up time and time again.
Quads are cheap now get one, be done with it.

Only gamers still want fast duals if you aren't building a game PC get a quad.
How hard was that to work out.

its not that simple, look at it this way, if you game and do numerous other things and can get a Q6600 that does 3.6 or 3.8ghz stably. What would you choose? a wolfdale that does 4ghz or a little higher if extremely lucky? or a quad that is clocked almost that high anyway?.

I honestly dont think a gamer would notice any difference in a few hundred mhz

 

[Jezza101]

Thought it was worth adding this to the mix, the gamers might want to check it out. Or not. The unreal 3 engine used by many games out, or coming out this year can use 4 cores...

Epic's Tim Sweeney explains:

Q. How will Unreal Tournament 3 use multiple cores on a CPU? Does it take advantage of Quad Core CPU's? If so, how/what task is assigned to each core?

A. Unreal Engine 3 is a transitional multithreaded architecture. It runs two heavyweight threads, and a pool of helper threads.

The primary thread is responsible for running UnrealScript AI and gameplay logic and networking. The secondary thread is responsible for all rendering work. The pool of helper threads accelerate additional modular tasks such as physics, data decompression, and streaming.

Thus UE3 runs significantly faster on CPUs which support two or more high-performance threads. This includes dual-core Intel and AMD PC CPUs, the Xbox 360 (which sports 3 CPU cores and 2 hardware threads per core), and PlayStation 3 (with 1 CPU core running 2 high-performance hardware threads per core.)

Beyond two cores or hardware threads, UE3 performance continues to scale up, as the additional threads accelerate physics and decompression work. However, not all scenes are performance-bound by such things, so there are diminishing returns as you go beyond 4 cores. By the time CPUs with large numbers of cores are available - thinking 16-core and beyond - we'll be on the start of a new engine generation, with some significant changes in software architecture to enable greater scaling.

 

[555BUK]

A few questions for people with Quads.

1). How many hours per day do you run with all 4 cores at 100%, or even close to 100%.
2). Same question as 1, but exclude benching and stability testing.

 

[w3bbo]

Never except benching/testing.

How often do you drive a car on the rev/speed limiter?

Its always handy to have a little in reserve.

 

[badbob]

Its always handy to have a little in reserve.

For most people under normal to heavy use, you won't use 100% x2 either. Having reserve power is good, but you can go over the top also. Why not buy a 32 core server, as it'll be even faster with less lag when multi-tasking?

 

[Hesky82]

A few questions for people with Quads.

1). How many hours per day do you run with all 4 cores at 100%, or even close to 100%.
2). Same question as 1, but exclude benching and stability testing.

Don’t ask people that question, ask it to yourself buddy. You will be the person that will be using the machine

From my point of view solidworks and 3ds max love thrashing the quad and I’m shifting out projects much faster, finding I don’t need to leave my pc on overnight number crunching like I did with my c2d. Also surprising how much faster it is in everyday use also.

If Intel decided to produce some higher multi yorkfield quads I would jump at them in a hart beat!

 

[555BUK]

Never except benching/testing.

How often do you drive a car on the rev/speed limiter?

Its always handy to have a little in reserve.

I actually drive a motorbike most of the time and find that two wheels are are usually faster than four.

 

[badbob]

Is your existing PC a dual core rig? If so just do you normal work, keeping a log on the CPU load. If it never loads out at 100% x 2, or only for short periods then you don't need a quad. And if a new dual core CPU is much faster than existing dual core, overall CPU load will be quicker.

If your multi-tasking does a lot of HD read/write actions, then a source & destination drive will help things along (ie re-compressing video)

 

[Darryl_1983]

I'd rather have the extra capacity sitting there waiting to be used for multi tasking, editing etc, and for when games start using them. I've got UT3 and i believe that is a quad core game, I have noticed slowing of frame rate with my E2200 if a quad would sort this it would definitely be worth the extra cost of the quad over a dual.

 

[RichL]

Even now you are better off with a quad since games will be GPU limited before CPU limitations of a clocked quad are reached. With current GPUs a 3.6GHz Quad will be just as quick as a 5GHz Dualcore. Hopefully when the new Quads come out we'll be able to hit similar clock speeds too.

 

[mattyg]

The way I see it
c2d x 4ghz = 8ghz
quad x 3.6 ghz =14.4ghz


Can I have my prize now

 

[Hesky82]

I actually drive a motorbike most of the time and find that two wheels are are usually faster than four.

Then you bump into a Mitsubishi Evo FQ400 down a country lane and realise why 4 wheels are better than 2!

Actually an overclocked quad is very much like a tuned Evo, push it to its limit and you realise how capable it is! only problem is both costs more to run, need better cooling to obtain maximum performance, and you don’t tent to use their full potential in daily use but anyway in both situations I like having the extra grunt even if I don't use it 50% of the time.

 

[Metallifux]

MKV to WMV of 42min tv show on 4200+X2 @2.45GHz = 4.5 hrs
MKV to WMV of 42min tv show on Q6600 @3GHz = 2 hrs

That's why I have a quad.

 

[555BUK]

MKV to WMV of 42min tv show on 4200+X2 @2.45GHz = 4.5 hrs
MKV to WMV of 42min tv show on Q6600 @3GHz = 2 hrs

That's why I have a quad.

Now that is hardly a fair comparisson. For specific tasks and for certain CPU limited games I agree quad is best, but for most tasks and most games there will be a neglidgable difference between a Q6600 or an E8400 running the same speeds. The E8400 has the benifit of being cheaper to buy, to cool and to run.

 

[Metallifux]

Now that is hardly a fair comparisson. For specific tasks and for certain CPU limited games I agree quad is best, but for most tasks and most games there will be a neglidgable difference between a Q6600 or an E8400 running the same speeds. The E8400 has the benifit of being cheaper to buy, to cool and to run.

Whilst I agree with what you are saying regarding games performance, the thread title asks why would I buy a dual core when I can get a quad. I provided the reason why I changed.

 

[queamin]

when next gen gpu's are out it should lift the bottleneck of the gpu on games and see the wolfdale spend it legs more if they hitting 4GIG?

 

[Hesky82]

and by then many games will take full advantage of quad-core CPUs, Devil May Cry 4, Alan Wake and others to name but a few future games that will natively support quads.