Processors...

I've been trying to find info on this, but haven't had a whole lot of luck understanding the impact of processors in the real world.

Maybe there's somewhere that has all of this laid out already, but I can't find it.

OK:
AMD Turion vs
Intel Core Solo vs
Core Duo

Obviously the Core Duo has twin cores, but is more expensive. Dollar-for-dollar, which is best? It seems like for the price of a 'slow' (1.6Ghz) Core Duo, you could pick up a 'fast' Turion. Where's the best place to put your money? How much 'faster' is a Core Duo than the equivilent clock-speed Turion or Core Solo, in different settings?

Also, how much would you notice a small increase in clock-speed in a single model?
For example, how much faster is a Core Duo T2400 (1.8Ghz) than a T2250 (1.7Ghz) or T2050 (1.6Ghz). The difference between the clock speeds is only about 5%, so surely the real-world speed can't be much different? Right? Wrong? Is it worth the $50 to upgrade from a slower one to the next?

I'm really confused.

 

Having a Core Duo does not make an applicaton run faster. What it does do however is allow two applications to run at the same time without any slow-downs.

In other words, a Core Duo is not 100% faster compared to an AMD Turion running at the same clock speeds, but it is 100% more efficient.

It is totally beneficial to go for a Dual Core CPU.

You should really get a Intel Core Duo 2 CPU which is 64bit and so can run Windows Vista, meaning that the new Intel Core 2 Duo is future proof.

 

Dollar for dollar, and just basic usage, a Core Duo will work better. Ever had your computer "lock up" because of a runaway process killing the CPU? Core Duo, you can work around that normally. And more and more software is starting to take advantage of dual cores, not to mention that two processors is almost always better than one. You run more than one program, right?
And yes, your percentages are pretty right. A T2400 will have more memory bandwidth than the T2250 or T2050, so encoding media and such will be better. But you won't notice a huge difference, especially if you're not a high-power user.

Check the other threads around here before posting, too. This kind of thing has been answered many times before.

 

That does not cause a computer to lock up. What causes it to lock up can still happen just as easily on a dualcore system.
A computer may lock up if a thread decides to run at realtime priority (which I don't really know of any commercial software that ever does). But if you found a singlethreaded piece of software that did this, then yes, it wouldn't lock up the computer, only half of it. But since this never happens in practice, the benefit is... limited.

What usually causes lock ups is bad drivers, bad hardware or buggy games. All of these can just as easily cause lock ups on a dualcore system.

Where dualcore comes in handy is when you run multiple CPU-intensive applications simultaneously. If you want to run an antivirus scan while computing pi to 2 million decimals, you'll notice a big improvement if you get a dualcore processor.

Or if you run one of the few games that are able to take advantage of these processors, you'll notice a good chunk of extra performance.

But for most everyday tasks, it doesn't really make a difference, nor does it in any way make your system more robust or stable.

So while a dual-core CPU is clearly better, it might not be worth the higher price. (Depending on what you plan to use your computer for)

A few other misc. corrections:
Vista also comes in a 32-bit version, so 64-bit support isn't required.
A computer with a dualcore CPU is not 100% more efficient than a computer with a singlecore CPU. There are plenty of other bottlenecks at play, so the highest improvement you'll ever see is something like 70-80% extra performance. And for many (most) tasks, you won't see any improvement at all, or improvement in the range of 2-3%.

 

Technically, the performance increase is average to above average. But, the psychological aspect is increased ∞ fold. The idea of having two or more processors will definitely make you "feel" that the laptop/PC is traveling at speed-of-light fast. Another case of mind over matter.

 

In which case the optimal case would be to get someone to buy you a singlecore system while telling you it's dualcore...

 

Well then thats when your technical knoledge comes into play.

 

That's why I put lock up in quotes. I know what what locking is. It's not terribly common. However, rogue processes that basically make the computer unusable ARE much more common. Ever had a virus scan start spinning it's wheels? Some program become totally non-responsive because of a bad loop or something silly like that? Your GUI start becoming unusable because things are going so slow? Only the mouse moves? I know many people who it's happened to. It happens to me sometimes (but I also work with alpha quality software much of the time. It's bound to happen.)
Most people who get dual-core systems as compared to single CPU ones are amazed at how fluid it feels. Always. Even when they're running something, it doesn't "bog down" like single processor machines. That's worth a LOT right there, just the perception of performance, even if it won't make all your apps light-speed. Just telling someone it's dual-core isn't enough, either. When your mouse doesn't lag even under high CPU usage, when you can watch a flash animation and still pull up a menu... that's very noticeable, even though people may not be able to pinpoint the exact difference, it "feels" a lot faster.

 

Jalf is right... I have a single core system at 1.66ghz... and a dual core system at 1.6ghz... and the single core system actually works faster in basically everything they do. It even got a faster time than the dual core in super pi. Sometimes I think that dual core processors are all a big lie.

 

Any idea how much cache either of them have, Ella Grande? That will make a very large difference, especially on things like superpi which are computationally expensive, though not memory-hogging. If you can get the whole dataset in cache and not have to touch RAM, it can be much quicker than a "faster" system that has to go to system memory to keep it's data lines full. If they're both running at the same clocks per second, but one has more cache, well, there's your answer right there.
Lots of little things go into performance, not just clock speed. Dual cores mitigate a lot of issues regardless, and will run faster, or at least appear to do so to most users, which is all that really matters now, isn't it?

 

Not so true if you compare two instances running speed. You can try it out: start two SuperPi from two directories(SuperPi requires write back file), then you will see the different of single core and dual cores. For sure, different Intel & AMD implement 2 cores differently. And by this you can tell which one handle parallel tasks better(but only in certain app).

If you only run one instance, there would be no much differences. Core Duo will be slightly faster than single core because of some improvement. X2 is slow just because the cache is 1 quater of centrino, even half of Turion.

 

A Core Solo is a waste of money right now, considering that the average selling price (ASP) for a Core Duo-based system is less than $1,000. A dual-core processor smooths out your computing experience, and makes your PC more responsive when you are running something that requires a good chunk of CPU usage in the background. Also skip the Turions for the same reason - single core.

I have been using a dual-core system on a regular basis for a week, and I definitely notice the difference when going back to a single-core Pentium M for general computing (how smooth everything runs, etc, especially multitasking).