Intel X9100 Core 2 Duo VS QX9300 Core 2 Quad

When I pre-ordered my Sager NP9850 I went with the Intel X9100 Core 2 Duo Extreme 3.06GHz processor over the Intel QX9300 Core 2 Quad 2.53GHz because from what I am told the Duo overclocked will smoke the Quad as of "right" now. Did I make the right choice?

And also I am told that Sager's are highly upgradeable, can I in the future just upgrade my processor to a quad when the demend comes?

 

It totally depends upon the tasks/games you run. If the apps make good use of all 4 cores, the QX9300 will "smoke" the dual core (and you should be able to OC the quad as well). You shouldnt have any problems upgrading the CPU down the road, but its a Sager so I'm not sure

 

I went from a T9900 (same as x9100 only with locked multipliers and lower wattage) to a qx9300 and I loved it. Temps went up for sure, but overall the qx9300 is freaking sweet.

 

Even the slower QUAD will be better than the X9100.
The Qx9300 is the best mobile CPU made now.

 

That's an oversimplification... the point is we are progressing farther and farther into a mobile world... therefore people need the power of desktops in a laptop, and we are seeing more and more quad supported programs... Therefore it safe to assume going Quad would be a smart choice

 

It is true that the QX9300 is quite a powerful CPU, but let us not forget that it is not a true quad as it is nothing more than two T9400's stapled together. The Q9xxx series suffers from stuttering because each die of two cores cannot communicate with each other across the FSB simultaneously; the FSB has to switch off between each die. The loss in performance is extremely small, but the latency is noticable at times for many of us that have a Q9xxx in our machines. However, this has already been remedied in the i7's as everything is packed into one monolithic die as well as the memory controller being integrated onto the chip.

Albeit having a QX9300 in my own laptop, I am not impressed by the QX9300 in terms of architecture, however I am not disappointed. We will start to see quad cores really shine when Intel releases the final incarnation of the Nehalem platform, namely the 32nm Westmere. Let's hope Intel won't get out of hand with the multicore trend like they did with the gigahertz trend back in the P4 days.

 

If you find you rarely use your CPU at 100% load, then you're probably ok. Most people don't require that much CPU power, but certain games and programs are more CPU demanding and would benefit depending on how they are optimized.

 

I fell you made a mistake. Lets just say, Core 2 Duo(3.06 X2=6.12ghz) where Core 2 Quad is 2.53X4= 10.12 ghz). Now don't bite me for comparing those!

 

For now, high clock on C2D may reduce CPU bottleneck more in games. Pbly the reason that a M1730 with 8800m GTX sli get 11k in 3Dmark 06 @2.5 Ghz, where as the result goes upto 15k @3.4 Ghz.

More games that take advantage of quad will come along, in the future though. Consider both are expensive, I'd have gone with quad core myself. Apparently you can get the quad to 3.0 Ghz by OC'ing on 980NU.

 

I don't really believe that overclocking can make a core dual faster a quad core. It may be faster in certain multi-thread apps but in terms of raw performance the Quad will smoke any dual simply because of the 2 more physical cores. Two cars can't load as many as four cars. Also, as said above, quad core will be more future-proof than dual core.

 

cancel your order and get the quad now

 

I canceled my pre-order and I re-ordered using the Quads... hopefully I have made the right choice

 

Wise choice; though might I ask what's the price difference?

 

With any multicore software, the quad will be faster. Simply using the operating system and running various programs, you notice the difference. I feel like I need an SSD though to really make this system scream.

Some games rely on a quad core to perform well, notably GTA4 and Left 4 Dead from my experience. I traded out my P9600 for the QX9300 and noticed an immediate difference. 3dmark06 and vantage highest scores are coming from sli/cf QX9300 systems, not from x9100s. Dual core is old news, once you're in the 3Ghz range with Quads, they really outshine Duals.

 

Wow I wonder here Moo was for all this... anyhow WELCOME! to the quad revolution!

 

Quad is a much better choice than the dual core. Dual core is old news now and has no place in a high performance machine.

Gaming is the only defense you could possibly bring up where dual core is better than a quad, but that defense is shut down because 2.53ghz on the QX9300 is fast enough to run any dual core only game at full speed already.

So there is honestly not a single benefit to the dual core at all, except 3dmark06 epeen.

 

Nice choice! You will not regret that!

 

I am still not a big fan of quads. It all depends on whether you need it or not.

I am mostly interested in single thread performance and hence I need a high clock frequency rather than many cores. Additionally not many laptops are compatible with quads today, let aside the 44Watt power consumption.

Ask yourself first: Have you ever needed to run 4 threads at full throttle before? If so, go with the quad. Otherwise go with the T9900.


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> Yes I have and commonly do run all 4 threads at 100%

Now ask yourself this, have you ever run a single threaded application 100% on your dual core? Probably not as any really cpu intensive task is multi threaded and will use all 4 cores, also if you had a task using up a lot of cpu power and it was only 1 thread, the quad core will put all other tasks on the free cores and dedicate that task to a single core of its own.

Seriously give it up, there is no situation that a dual core is better than the quad anymore except heat/battery life and those are very minor as idle they are about the same and under load your going to be on mains power and finish your tasks faster with the quad.

So give me an expample where your intersted in this so called "single threaded performance" what task is it that 2.53ghz (before overclock) on the quad is not enough to handle it.

I have a nice long list of applications and scenarios for you in return where the quad will out perform the dual though.

 

I think there are going to be alot of dissapointed people soon, Quad support is becoming more and more prevalent... Dual will still cut it but for people who want the power and high class machines, they are going to have to go quad

 

I wouldn't consider the battery life and heat minor since the quads ARE basically two dual cores in one. The only situation where dual cores are better really is for those two (and the fact that a lot of notebooks don't support them). Otherwise I agree that performance wise, quads are best.

 

My battery life dropped maybe 10-15 minutes coming from the P9600. I still get over 100 minutes at 100% brightness, so it's w/e for me.

 

The price difference is $560.

 

Yeaaa unless you did what I did and got the Qx9300 for 400