• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Why is Core Duo viewed as good for gaming?

caff

caff

caff

Soldato
Joined
8 Feb 2004
Posts
3,776
Location
London
Kind of a noobish question but here goes -

I am a keen gamer, but until now dual cores haven't really been viewed as gaming-friendly. So what makes this new Conroe better?

I also multitask a lot of stuff, e.g. several programs running at once, alt-tabbing between em all, so I can see the benefit of purchasing for that reason. But what makes this different (ie. better) for games than previous Intel / AMD dual cores?
 
Better technology.

more efficient design.

2.4ghz conroe is faster than a FX 60 clocked at 2.8ghz.
And at 252 quid there really is no other cpu to get.

Dual core is not that important in gaming but having said that conroe blows the amd counterparts away.

this is even before you clock them! :D

And thats coming fom someone who is at FX 62 speeds!
 
What easyrider said, basically. Intel have finally realised that it's not all about clock frequencies, you need an efficient architecture to develop a CPU that can beat the competition.

For a long time now AMD has been the king of gaming CPUs whereas Intel chips always performed better in singular tasks such as video editing or server applications, but now that the completely new Conroe architecture has been unveiled, it seems to excell in all of the above for a very low cost.

I've been with AMD for quite some time now, my last Intel processor was a Pentium III 550MHz, but I think the time may have come for me to switch back. I'm hesitant, of course, but I simply cannot deny how fantastic these things look.

Addition: As said, dual core doesn't make much difference in gaming yet, but it's nice to have if you multitask a lot and can spend the extra outlay. Some of us are scrooges and still on Athlon64's. ;)
 
Last edited:
its got nothing to do with the fact they are dual core its to do with how much processing power thay have, which to say is its the best you can get for the money when they are released
 
Add the raw power and the price to the fact that more and more games are supporting/going to support multiple cores and it adds up to a very compelling reason to go back to Intel. All we need now is a sensibly priced chipset to get the motherboard prices under control so it's over to the nvidia/ati/via/SiS boys!
 
Ok, sounds interesting, so this should make any Windows XP-based PC fly then...

My next question is - I dont know how quick or good AMD processors are because I've never owned one, so I can't envisage the speed potential.

So how much of a step up is it from my existing 18-month old P4 3.2Ghz with HT (512kb cache I think). Are we talking a major leap in speed and user experience?
 
Probably not going to be a "major" step forward for you really. At least in terms of Windows usage. For gaming it should be a sizable jump in FPS etc. It really depends what you use your PC for...

I'm still on a 1.8A Northwood and 1GB DDR266... so when I goto Conroe next month it's going to be like upgrading from a Vauxhall Nova to a Veyron, overnight :p
 
so in games would a single core version be just as fast as conroe? yonah' are very fast too, there little pocket rockets, but theres so little motherboard support. not to go to far off topic, whens the new xeons coming out, will they still be MP? cause im interested in the conroe varient of the xeon more than the conroe, twos good, fours better :p i hear a lot 'how fast will conroe be at 3.6Ghz!?' now i ask, how fast will two be at 3.6Ghz? :eek:
 
I might have picked up the wrong end of the stick, but I think it has something to do with the unified L2 cache arcitecture. Original dual core stuff had 2 processors on the same silicon, each with it's own L2 cache. These new ones have a unified L2 cache, so if one processor is taking the majority of the work (ie a Game not coded for dual core), it can access more cache. More L2 cache is a good thing.
 
I believe at the same trade show where Intel compared the Conroe with the AMD FX60, they also had a P4 Extreme edition overclocked to 4.1Ghz, and the 2.66Ghz conroe was more than a match for it in most tests. Another number I heard floating around, was that a 2.66Ghz conroe should be around 40% faster than a 3.2Ghz P4, so that would put it around about the same as a 'theoretical 4.48Ghz P4.

Even the 2.4Ghz conroe will beat your 3.2Ghz P4 without any problems, especially at gaming. And if you choose to overclock it then it should be very quick indeed.

One of the reasons Conroe is so quick, is because each core is able to perform 4, and sometimes even 5 instructions in parallel, intel have improved the out of order execution system as well, to squeeze instructions though the processor faster. So even if you were to buy a Core 2 Solo (single core version) it should still out perform a P4 without any bother.

As a previous poster mentioned, Core 2 Duo can share its cache between cores, so for single threaded applications, one core can steal the entire cache, and thats good news for games, which often benifit from large cache.
 
Last edited:
NathanE said:
Probably not going to be a "major" step forward for you really. At least in terms of Windows usage. For gaming it should be a sizable jump in FPS etc. It really depends what you use your PC for...

I'm still on a 1.8A Northwood and 1GB DDR266... so when I goto Conroe next month it's going to be like upgrading from a Vauxhall Nova to a Veyron, overnight :p
Click to expand...

5 seater - > 2 seater

5 x the fuel consumption :P
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom