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why buy a dual core when quads are available?

MossyUK

MossyUK

MossyUK

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Preston, Lancs
been trying to spec up a new pc as mine is near 3 years old now and it shows. Anyway, been checking out the spec me threads for tips, and i see a lot of people going with wolfdale dual core 3ghz cpu's over the 2.40ghz quads. Is this purely on a ghz scale, or on cost, or is the quad core just not worth buying for gaming?

Any help / opinions appreciated.
 
Quite simply games don't make use of Quads right now. For a pure gaming system then a faster dual core is the way to go.

It just depends what you do with your system really. I quite regularly make good use of all 4 cores on my CPU but then I don't play games :) If I did I would've gone for a dual .. though I do have an E8400 to play with for when I can be bothered.
 
atm very few games use mutli core supreme commander being the only one that springs to mind.. so unless you are using apps that take advantage of multi cores then there is no really performance gain to be had by using a quad..

Secondly duel core tend to beable to clock better as they put less presure on the FSB and therefore you can run high FSB...

Thirdly the wolfdale CPU are the latest release from Intel and are 45nm they produce less heat than the 65nm quadcores and therefore can be clocked higher..

hope that helps :)
 
I have to say with the same (basic) windows apps running, I find windows XP with 4GB ram a lot smoother on a quad than I ever did with a dual (even though its 400mhz slower)
 
I'm having very much the same thoughts. I am completely stuck at what CPU to buy.. Ive been trying to decide for weeks.. I don't know the best way to go.. I would use my pc for:

Gaming
Coding
Browsing
Music
DVD's

However gaming = c2d and everything else would be handy on a c2q. Thus being a problem when deciding :(

I hope we find an answer..
 
why dont current games utilise all four cores? were they in development at a time when quad cores didnt exist? or can games manufacturers just not be bothered?
 
If you plan to keep it a while then it'd be better to go quad, however if your likely to upgrade again in 12months get a dual.
 
yantorsen said:
because it has street cred, and a Q6600 doesn't.
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Disagree, on this overclocking forum epeen or street cred is relevant, but i doubt its a huge deciding factor in either case.

Incidently, in Vista64 it shows all of my cores doing something or other the majority of the time. I suspect that while programs are not written with quad core in mind, I do not think you are at a disadvantage for having more then dual core.
 
Well Splattered said:
Disagree, on this overclocking forum epeen or street cred is relevant, but i doubt its a huge deciding factor in either case.

Incidently, in Vista64 it shows all of my cores doing something or other the majority of the time. I suspect that while programs are not written with quad core in mind, I do not think you are at a disadvantage for having more then dual core.
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except it costs more, and a faster dual is better if you don't use all the cores, obviously if you have things that use more cores it's better, or if you want to keep it longer.

And tbh I don't think most people care about epeen, not in the way people care about street cred anyway.
 
yantorsen said:
except it costs more, and a faster dual is better if you don't use all the cores, obviously if you have things that use more cores it's better, or if you want to keep it longer.
Click to expand...

Looking at original post I am going to say the MossyUK only upgrades every three years. Would you agree that the extra £4 between comparable (Q6600 @2.4 and E6600 @ 2.4) processors is worth the future proofing?

Streetcred means nowt to me either, why should i care what a random person thinks when i drive past? <-- my opinion.
 
Well Splattered said:
Looking at original post I am going to say the MossyUK only upgrades every three years. Would you agree that the extra £4 between comparable (Q6600 @2.4 and E6600 @ 2.4) processors is worth the future proofing?
Click to expand...

I agree yes, but it wouldn't really between the E6600 and Q6600, but one of the new gen CPU's, but still if he's keeping it that long, then yes I agree, like I've already said.

Streetcred means nowt to me either, why should i care what a random person thinks when i drive past? <-- my opinion.
Click to expand...


doesn't bother me much either, but it bothers me more than epeen.
 
i love to play with new hardware so why not get one, keep the quad aswell and sell what u dont want
 
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