Dual Core vs Quad Core

To begin with this question is for opinions of processors.

I currently use a HP 17" AMD dual core with W7 HP and it functions
very well for my needs. I have been looking at some quad core units
and they do not appear to have anything better other than extreme
use of graphics or games and of course price.

Do you think my logic is correct or have I missed something.

Thanks

 

Theoretically, the best way to think of it with current laptops is:

Dual core = balance between speed and battery life
Quad core = pure speed, very little battery life

In practice, if you're one of the few people who truly needs a quad core, then you'll already know for certain that you need it without having to ask anyone. If you're not sure, then you don't need one.

 

OK Thanks

 

No, your logic is pretty much correct, as long as your needs don't overstep your current dual core processor. This is why the recent rash of CULVs and even netbooks are so popular; for most people, the weak processors in these units are more than enough for the little that they do.

 

And on the "pure speed" note, that really depends on the load. Loads with little threading will go faster on dual cores because they're typically clocked faster than the equivalently priced quad cores. Many games are still single threaded, so they'll do much better with a dual core than with a quad core. But if you then throw turbo boost in, everything's different

 

Agreed, but with the over abundance of CPU processing power we have been spoiled with pretty much anything mainstream is enough for games. As long as it isn't a budget CPU then it will run just fine.

 

I would recommend u get a quad core... it might use slightly more power but by undervolting the 45W TDP can easily go down to 30s W TDP...its better to have more power than not to have enough.

 

Correct!

In many situations, dual-core notebooks have as much as 500Mhz more clock frequency on the same generation architecture that the quad-cores use.

 

most new games are NOT single threaded. many seem to use a min of 2 cores. many have good performance boosts from a 3rd core as well. this is due to the number of ports from xbox360 games

 

Even if a game is single thread it benefits from dual core slightly as then the system threads can be pushed to the second core. The same happens with having Tri or Quad core where a game can utilize multiple threads. The problem with the Tri or Quad cores is that they tend to be underclocked by comparison of the Dual core.

The ix' cores tend to lower the differentiation of the single to multi thread use with the Turbo function................

 

Unless you have a specific need for quad core, there's no real benefit to going beyond a dual core. For example, I bought my laptop primarily to configure as a video editing computer. Therefore, quad core was a necessity element--since Adobe CS4 is optimized for that architecture. Unless you also have a similar use in mind for the additional two cores, you're unlikely to see any advantage to purchasing a quad core computer. In fact, some programs may even run slower.

Thiis lag in technology arose shortly after quad core was first introduced. Back then, it's creators had great expectation for how it would make computing easier and faster. Needless to say, despite it being superior to dual core in many ways, the software industry did not embrace the improvement as much as had been hoped for since writing programs for quad core application is exponentially more difficult--and expensive! Without that economic incentive, software manufacturers didn't see the need to advance their products.

In the future, there may be a general benefit for quad core application, but for the moment, the greatest benefit doesn't go much beyond bragging rights.

 

This is not always true. On my Core i5 661, the system threads usually take less than 0.5%, and lot of additional ones take 0%. That is low demand to be more than enough to be taken care by the single core, or if its really needed, a logical 2nd core.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2410&p=3

Ideally the system thread should not run when a program is running, and even then, the affect is usually 1-2%. Having to dynamically allocate resources might make it even slower in some cases.

Quad cores is becoming overkill for us. Imagine with 6 and 8 cores. Luckily both AMD and Intel are smart enough to realize "per core" performance still matters.