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Hi Guys
Another pc query! I just wondered if a Intel Viiv Quad Core 2.4Ghz 1066Mhz FSB, 8MB cache would be better than a E8500 Core 2 Duo Processor 3.16GHz, 6MB, 1333MHz??
Thanks

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Ed


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Get the Dually. Almost no proggy can use 4 cores.

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
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I agree with Thomas. Photoshop might use all four cores but I would worry that some of the advantage would be lost by memory bottlenecks. The Nehalem architecture, expected later this year, should help.

Bob.

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It's basically a

Q6600 2.40Ghz 8MB L2 Cache 1066Mhz FSB

-Vs-

E8500 3.15Ghz 6MB L2 Cache 1333Mhz FSB


Now...it all depends on how fast you want to go.

The Q6600 G0 Stepping model, can easily clock to 3.16Ghz, smashing the E8500 in everything, but it can go to as far as 4Ghz on Air cooling with a good enough motherboard and a bit of know how.


Although, if your not so willing to go down the overclocking route, best bet is to stick with the E8500

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Hi Guys
Thanks for your replys! What exactly are the advantages of a core 2 duo over quad core??
Please bear in mind that i will most likely not oveclock my system to start with, but that might well be a possibility in the future!
Thanks for your help

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Ed


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Quad Core, 8MB L2 cache => 2MB L2 cache/core

Dual Core, 6MB L2 cache => 3MB L2 cache/core

I'm a student at the Automation and Computer Science Faculty in the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 4th year of studies... so I studied how this things work (down to tranzistor scale).. and I must say.. 1MB L2 cache is making a very big difference... I would say to go with the Dual Core..

L2 cache is the fastest memory in a PC.. L2 cahe is with RAM like RAM with HDD L2 is that fast because is on the Core chip, and it's communicating with the CPU directly.. hope I made myself clear, I didn't had to explain this before to anyone

Plus that, as Thomas mentioned, very few programs are optimized to use 4 cores. I'm positive that 2 cores with more L2 cache will make a better job than 4 with less L2 cache.. I'm a programmer too and the multi-thread programming is a nasty "pain in the ass"

Cheers,
HNV

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"Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler." Albert Einstein

The direct advantage of having a dual core is that more programs support dual core, and not so many support quad.

You guys are forgetting one major advantage of the quad core over the dual core cpu and that would be multitasking performance.
I still have a single core cpu, however, I've tried both dual core (not sure which one it was exactly) and quad core (Intel Q6600) cpus and the quad core handled more tasks running at the same time better.
There's another advantage to that.
If you have a bunch of programs that can't use more than one core, you can run more of those at the same time.

That's depending of the proccesor u're using... multi-tasking = multi-thread...and a program will never use a "full" core! that would be absurd!

A single CPU can do multi-taskin (including OS, Windows XP and above, let's say, and programs you're using)... more CPUs can mean more multitaskin, kind of... but Win XP, while it's able to handle more threads at a time, it's not capable of making the different between 2 or more CPUs at a time.. and that the job of the software you're using... and very few of the programs use quad-CPU or more right now (speaking of a "consumer" level)

To make it eve more clear, Win XP is showing in Task Manaker 4 cores... but when you launch Photoshop, Windows is launching one execution thread (photoshop.exe)... when Photoshop is running, in able to apply, let's say, a certain filter many mathematical operations have to be done.. using photoshop with more than one pictures open means that photoshop has to do more of these oprerations at a time. Multi-thread operations means that certain operations (mathematicaly) can be done at a same time (depending on relationships between them)... so it's up to the program if it can "handle" 1, 2 or 4 CPUs at the same time and be able to manage this much "computational power".. the problem is not "computational power"... the "problem" is.. how you can "use" it!
Cheers,
HNV

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More and more applications are being designed to utilise multiple cores but as of yet, there still aren't enough. I think quad-core would be the more future-proof option but for now, go with dual.

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Graham
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It's a good way of explaining it. That refers to the number of clock cycles and calculations per clock cycle, right?

The main thing is, unless you are going to be convertingencoding 2 videos while using photoshop and running a CGI program, 4 cores isn't necessary.

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As an aside, Custom PC is reporting some pretty tasty Core 2 Quad price cuts. Maybe partly to give AMD a headache and maybe making way for Nehalem later in the year?

Bob.

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Intel sounds very keen to phase out the Penryn chips as early as possible. I'm very sure that's the reason.

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Graham
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its all about that 45nm quad core now

Not necessarily. Unless you run app's optimised for quad core, you are just as well off with an E8500 as much as a Q9450. I myself am going for the E8400 which is a steal at its current price and will do nicely with my 8800gtx.

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