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Geek Culture / Processors - Power

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AlexI
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Posted: 24th Jul 2006 23:15 Edited at: 24th Jul 2006 23:15
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Hi,
I am thinking of getting a PC but theres two PC's for the same price and they have different processors.

PC 1: Intel Pentium 4 - 3.06ghz

PC 2: Intel Pentium D820 Dual Core Processor - 2.8GHz

Which one is better?
Does dual core make it more powerfull?

Thanks,
Alex


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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 24th Jul 2006 23:32
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dual core means it can do two things at once. Technically, the first is probably more POWERFULL. It can do a single task quicker than the second.

The future is in Dual Core. You could dedicate one thread to one task and the other to gameplay, etc.

But until game makers start using it, single core will be better.

What do you use your computer for? What is your current spec?

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UnderLord
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 01:48
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Quote: "dual core means it can do two things at once. Technically, the first is probably more POWERFULL. It can do a single task quicker than the second.

The future is in Dual Core. You could dedicate one thread to one task and the other to gameplay, etc.

But until game makers start using it, single core will be better.

What do you use your computer for? What is your current spec?"


Dude, please I work for Dell I know all about dual core....let me tell you.

PC #2 might have dual core and a slower processor but the processor speed is only 200mhz slower then PC #1. Will you see a big diffrence in performance between 200mhz? No.

Dual core means you have two processing cores rather then one its like having 2 CPU's in your system built into one CPU.

What Nicholas is refering to is Hyper-Threading. If you had a system with HT you'd want to shut it off to play games (because HT has been known to slow down systems during game play). Having dual core though will allow you to like Nick said, play games and say, run a DVD at the same time. With little to no slow down. However it dosnt matter if game developers use it or not your games will still run smoother with dual core.

Get a solo core and you'll be upgrading in about 6 months to 1 year.

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 02:15
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I use a dell at work - its really slow hehe.. (j/k)

If you get a Dual 2.8 is that two 2.8's or is it two 1.4's that double up to make 2.8?

There was also logic behind me aksing what his PC is used for.

If he uses it soley for DBP development then a dual core is a waste of time - DBP wont use it. If he uses it to play games - it might help, but probably not hugely.

If, however, he uses programs that make use of dual core (like video editing, image processing, etc) then go for it.

In fact, I do agree with you that you should get one anyway - Its much better. I have a 4400+ X2 and its so nice to leave something killing one CPU in the background and I can still use the PC almost as if nothing was happening at all

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Oddmind
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 02:47
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when in doubt get the one that has the cooler look/name. shallow i know.

formerly KrazyJimmy

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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 02:53
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Id build my own, if I was you. When you build your own, you get what you want.
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UnderLord
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 03:27 Edited at: 25th Jul 2006 03:28
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Quote: "In fact, I do agree with you that you should get one anyway - Its much better. I have a 4400+ X2 and its so nice to leave something killing one CPU in the background and I can still use the PC almost as if nothing was happening at all "


Im going to upgrade to a dual core later when I get the cash then i'll do something with the old chip.

But just do the dual core, you'll love yourself for doing it (literally)

Quote: "If you get a Dual 2.8 is that two 2.8's or is it two 1.4's that double up to make 2.8?"


Its one 2.8 with 2 processing cores, having 2 physical CPU's would actually do you better, but dual core is for people that don't want to do that. In a couple of years having 2 CPU's on one mobo will be gone, and then dual core.

Thik of dual core as master and slave CD-Roms....Having 2 CD-Roms is great but what dual core makes even better is that you can use those 2 CD-Roms (AKA dual core) at the same time with no slow down to your machine or its processes.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 04:32
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Quote: "If you had a system with HT you'd want to shut it off to play games (because HT has been known to slow down systems during game play). "


Not to mention the random artifacts that show up in games running on CPUs with HT, which never showed up on my older non-HT processors.

"Using Unix is the computing equivalent of listening only to music by David Cassidy" - Rob Pike
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adr
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 11:47
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Quote: "Dude, please I work for Dell"

Firstly, that's not as impressive as you'd like to think. Maybe if you'd said
Quote: "Dude, please I'm an engineer for Intel"

Then that would've carried more weight... either way:

If you can get me a replacement rubber foot for a Dell Inspiron 8600, then I will pay you, personally. Every time I call, the customer service dude misunderstands, and tries to sell me an entire base for $120.

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 11:59
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About HT buggering games - I've actually noticed that dual core isn't so great for some older games either. Really messes them up! They go all juddery. The easiest way to solve it is to go to Task manager and set the process's affinity to one CPU only.

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UnderLord
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Posted: 25th Jul 2006 15:31
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Quote: "If you can get me a replacement rubber foot for a Dell Inspiron 8600, then I will pay you, personally. Every time I call, the customer service dude misunderstands, and tries to sell me an entire base for $120."


I don't think you can get a replacement for that part. But if you can more then likly its a universal part meaning you can get it from anywhere that sells them.

Everytime I do a search for that part I get like gaming mouses and crap.

Quote: "Firstly, that's not as impressive as you'd like to think"


I was just stating a fact that I know the diffrence between dual core and HT because I work for Dell, I get training on these things. Besides I'm only your lonly sales person =P

Quote: "Quote: "Dude, please I'm an engineer for Intel"
Then that would've carried more weight... either way:"


Agreed

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dark coder
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Posted: 26th Jul 2006 07:00
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Im running 2 dual code machines here, and cant say ive noticed much improvement, mainly because i dont have anything to compare it to, most apps ive run are only using a single core, so unless you plan on doing renders that take all day or some video editing it may not be much use, the most i use is just chaging the affinity of resource hog apps so it doesnt slow down others.

Hallowed are the ori.
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Dazzag
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Posted: 26th Jul 2006 20:58 Edited at: 26th Jul 2006 21:00
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Quote: "cant say ive noticed much improvement"
Me neither. But then hardly anything makes use of it at the minute. Although I own some hardware media streamers (think KISS type devices) and converting a DVD to DivX (or VidX, can't remember which) has a codec that basically uses the two cores. Using the standard codec uses about 40% of total CPU usage (ie. only one CPU really), but the dual core version uses about 75%-80%, and you can notice the difference. Almost half the time basically.

Although I have to laugh when I run Spy Sweeper. One of the laptops takes like an hour to run, the dual core PC (AMD64 4400x2 I believe) takes about half an hour, and my older desktop (AMD XP 2400+) takes about 10 minutes. Basically because it has two 10k Raptors setup in a RAID 0 array (so close to 20k speed basically). Ok, so the new one has a 300gb disk compared to a total of about 150gb on the old one, but damn sure I have more files on the old one. And also consider the new machine has 2gb of ram compared to 1gb on the old one, so no complaints there. Probably just rubbishy written software. Should sort it out and move the RAID array to the new PC, but can't be arsed...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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AlexI
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Posted: 29th Jul 2006 15:24
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I just bought myself PC 1 its a really fast and has good spec!


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Miguel Melo
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Posted: 1st Aug 2006 19:35 Edited at: 1st Aug 2006 19:38
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If you're in the market for a computer right now, you should consider buying the new Core 2 Duo (aka Conroe) processor. The two lower conroes, E6300 and E6400 are a lot faster than the "D" generation, be they "D 8xx" or "D 9xx". And the price difference is not that big (they are actually cheaper than some of the older ones!).

I wasn't paying much attention to the conroe because I thought they would be slower/more expensive but I was blown away to find they are not.

EDIT: have a look at http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=16

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UnderLord
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2006 02:27
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Download and read this about the duo core 2

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Steve J
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2006 03:04
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I just built a $2900 machine with the x6800 core duo, and to say the least: Amazing. I cant believe how awesome that processor is.

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 3rd Aug 2006 15:43
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How hot do the new intel's run? I have a 4400+ X2 (Athlon) and with the standard stock heatsink and no particular effort for cooling (using standard Lian Li fans or cheap eBuyer LED ones) and I idle at 33C and peak at 36C in a room which has an ambient temperature of about 26C. Intels are fairly famous for running warm nowadays.

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Miguel Melo
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Posted: 3rd Aug 2006 17:41
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From the little I read, they run cooler than old Pentium 4's. They do run at much lower clock speeds (e.g. 1.8Ghz similar in actual speed to an old 3.4 Ghz).

Also, moving to a lower die size should cut down temperature further.

I already ordered mine... waiting for it to arrive. Here's the specs:

- Intel Core2 Duo E6400, pre-OverClocked from 2.13 to 2.7
- Asus P5B
- COOLERMASTER CENTURION 534 w/ LCPOWER 550 Watt
- EVGA 7900GT 256MB DDR3 HDTV PCIe
- COOLER THERMALTAKE GOLDEN ORB LEDS
- 2GB Corsair Value Kit 667 (couldn't get 800)
- 2 x WESTERN DIGITAL 160GB SATA II 8MB CACHE
- DVDS NEC 4570

I'm pretty excited with the prospect of running Doom3 and HL2 on this one!

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Steve J
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Posted: 4th Aug 2006 00:37
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Doom 3 runs so smooth on it, I was crying. Rendering is super fast. DBP runs great, on all levels, though I did get a few errors using a couple shaders, but It was because I didnt have my cards drivers installed (the new ones).

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