Dual or Quad Core?

[TheWakeUpCall]

I noticed that both the

Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4GHz S775

and the

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 6MB Cache S775 1333MHZ

are the same price. So which one will give the best performance?

I don't play hardly any games, so they are definitely not my priority. I do a lot of encoding and watching videos. I use photoshop and dreamweaver a lot. I do a lot of file management (ie moving, zipping and copying files). I am always listening to music on iTunes.

Also, if I am listening to iTunes, on msn and watching a video on firefox, will Windows automatically put each of those onto its own core to spread out the load? Because if so, surely it's better to have more cores?

Thanks for any opinions.

 

[karym6]

more cores generally means that windows can do more things at once. However, to see a really good performance increase you would probably need to increase the amount of ram you have as well.

I currently have a dual core machine, which works very well. I often use VMware on it as well, which means that when I run a vm, it has its very own processor (I think). For what you are describing, more cores would aid you with encoding, however you might want to have a quick comparison between the two CPUs to see which would be better. You may also have to check to see if your motherboard supports it.

 

[witchy]

Can applications request exclusive rights of a core?

That would be nice

I'm still using an old AMD64 3400, lol

 

[daz2712]

There is actually a 25% deficit from using a quad core compared to a dual core.

Only rendering and encoding tasks exploit parallelism enough to overcome the 25% speed deficit between the dual and quad core CPUs. Outside of that specific niche, performance will actually suffer for most general purpose software if you choose a slower quad-core over a faster dual-core.

 

[TheWakeUpCall]

This is so confusing. When I buy these parts, I don't want to have to change them for five years (like with my current PC), so they will need to be extremely future proof. So in the future things are going to be programmed for quad core aren't they?

However, in the mean time... a 25% drop in performance is very substantial.

Though, also the drop between 3.1Ghz and 2.4Ghz is also very substantial, even if there are twice as many 2.4 cores than 3.1.

Anyone else got anything to say? I have no idea which choice to make, i just want to make sure I won't regret it lol.

 

[witchy]

It's even more complicated than that

Just because a CPU is running at 2.4Ghz, it does not necessarily mean that it is any faster than a 1.0Ghz CPU, the 1Ghz CPU could be doing 3 times as many calculations per cycle!

Cycles x Calculations = power.

 

[bodser]

some people will probably disagree with me, however.......... I really dont see any use for a quadcore for a normal home user.

iTunes, MSN and watching video at the same time is nothing as far as processing goes.
Encoding is a different matter.... but a core2duo of that spec will speed through an encode. I can't see any reason to get a quadcore. I doubt you encode 2 things at once do you, as there is a risk of poor results.

Also, dependant on your motherboard and cpu fan the Core2Duo's are good at overclocking, you could even push it to 4.00GHz if you know what your doing.

I can see your temptation though, but I think the speed of the C2D will be greater than the Quad as previous comments have said.

I can play COD4 and encode a DVD at the same time with no loss of performance and I have a lower spec C2D (memory is important though, 2GB plus is needed)

 

[TheWakeUpCall]

some people will probably disagree with me, however.......... I really dont see any use for a quadcore for a normal home user.

iTunes, MSN and watching video at the same time is nothing as far as processing goes.
Encoding is a different matter.... but a core2duo of that spec will speed through an encode. I can't see any reason to get a quadcore. I doubt you encode 2 things at once do you, as there is a risk of poor results.

Also, dependant on your motherboard and cpu fan the Core2Duo's are good at overclocking, you could even push it to 4.00GHz if you know what your doing.

I can see your temptation though, but I think the speed of the C2D will be greater than the Quad as previous comments have said.

I can play COD4 and encode a DVD at the same time with no loss of performance and I have a lower spec C2D (memory is important though, 2GB plus is needed)

I wouldn't call myself a home user tbh. I do a lot of photoshop work, web development, programming and more. I however am not planning of overclocking it though, because i've tried it before, and nearly broke my computer.

By the sounds of it though, most people are saying go dual so I'll probs do that.