Originally posted by: Bona Fide
Originally posted by: n7
I now can consider getting one of these, when they come down a bit in price.
I'm a bit disappointed with the OCing results though.
It seems most sites are only getting around 2.4 GHz, & usually they get cherry-picked CPUs, too.
Just stick with your old one...you won't need a dual-core computer until the middle of next year.
its not about need, its about if you can use it. You probably don't "need" anything more than a 1GHz P3 and 512MB of ram, but that's no fun and hard to get some serious work done.
People don't multitask now because even a P4 with HT isn't that great of a multitasker.
Being able to do everything you used to do at full speed and then having another core to put to use is a big advantage. I think people don't realize it because they've never had it. Like people in the time before fire, they never cooked stuff because they never knew it or thought they "needed" it, but once we started doing it...well now we get sick and die if food is undercooked.
I think the people who appreciate dual core the most are those who have been using dual CPU rigs since they were available/practical. Dualcore is more apealing because it offers greater performance AND is more cost-effective. Dualcore chips usually aren't just twice the price, then there's no need for a special motherboard (unless its the PD ), then because the motherboards are so common you get common support and features such as PCI-e and SLI and all the good stuff single socket enthusiast baords can boast such as insanely fast/overclocked NON REGISTERED/ECC RAM - a big drag on performance if your data isn't mission critical.