dual core vs. single core- Pls stickie

[Gatt]

Actually ryox,

If you read through those threads, you'll find that virtually all of the problems are solved by using AMD's driver and the few that remain are solved by using the "Runfirst" freeware app. I've only seen one or two people who state that neither of these solved the problem, leaving me wondering if they're completely honest.

I'm going to risk it in two days, in large part because if you consider the intention of Intel and AMD to go multi-core with all products, you know these problems will be solved if they aren't already. There's no way they can ignore it as the install base gets higher.

But like I said, virtually everyone is reporting that either the Driver or the App solves the problems.

 

[Griffinhart]

http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/8459

Just adding fuel to the fire.

When Multi-threaded video drivers are released all 3d video games will see some benefit on Dual Core.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: ryox03
I am actually in the exact same boat right now, I have that Asrock 939 Dual SATA2 and am deciding against the same processors. I heard there were issues though with dual cores and games not running right, even on these very forums, yet everyone here is still recommending them, why?

Because there is no issue if you install the driver. One person said he had to set affinity, but if 100, it works, and one doesn;t ? I believe the other 99. And I know, I have 2 and play games. If you can afford it, get it, if not get the best you can afford.

 

[bradley]

Originally posted by: Bona Fide

Originally posted by: Crescent13

Originally posted by: Kensai
X2 3800+.

for multitasking, and F.E.A.R. is supposed to be optimised for dual core, and it's coming out this month.

I don't get why people say "get X2 if you like multitasking"

Because there are a lot of people who use their computers for light web browsing, word processing, and e-mail. And once those programs are running they don't always necessarily run any smoother with dual core. And when you give computer buying advice you should consider exact usage.

Otherwise, I would recommend the X2 3800+ to just about everyone.

 

[JD50]

Well, I went with the x2 3800 and I couldn't be happier. Keep in mind that I was using a athlon 2800 so I can't really compare my experience with the x2 with a single core 64 cpu. I can alt-tab out of games and check a website and have absolutely no lag, its just like minimizing another web page. I'm playing battlefield 2 with max settings on a 64 person server with an average of 50-60 FPS, thats with a eVGA 7800 GT. So my advice is, if you can afford a $350 cpu (www.tankguys.biz) then get the X2, it will only get better.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: n7
For those on a budget, X2s aren't an option.

Or for those who simply don't care about anything except running one thing at a time, a single core is a perfectly fine option.

However, overall, the X2 is a better choice.

I agree. I would love to get a dual core, but I really don't think I want to spend $350+ on a CPU at this time...

 

[PKing1977]

"It is unclear at this time whether Vista's boot time will increase as a result of the additional pre-loads. However, it was indicated that the feature will run in teh background and make use of multithreading capability. If a dual-core processor is present, we would expect boot times not be impacted significantly"

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050913_151411.html


Just another reason that dual core chips will be useful.

PKing

 

[boobears]

I think dual-core is great technology but still bought a single core processor a few months ago. I have used dual CPU systems at work for years so I know what people here are talking about when they say how much smoother the experience is. It is much smoother but the reality is that unless you do a huge amount of multitasking it's not such a big deal right now. If you don't run itunes while encoding video while running a virus scan while playing BF2, you won't notice that much of a difference.

Some of the reasons posted here for going dual-core are a bit silly e.g. I saw one guy mention that now you will be able to do virus scan and play games at the same time. Why? The hard disk usage will slow you down anyway and why are you scheduling virus scans for the middle of the day when people are using the computer? You need to ask yourself how much junk do you really run in the background and can you wait a year? Modern CPUs are quite good at multitasking and small apps like real-time virus checking and anti-spyware are barely noticeable. Why the concern about distributing the workload of a process that consumes less than 1% of a single core across two cores? Was that 1% really hampering your performance?

Unless you are upgrading from a junk processor I don't see why the budget 3800+ X2 is a good buy. Why get a processor that is 5-15% slower on most applications (read: non-multithreaded windows apps) than the equivalent priced single core chip. If you are an early adopter (read: money is falling out of your pockets) then you should get the 4800+ X2 because the average gamer still has no reason to get a dual-core chip at all.

If you are an early adopter or you have a business justified need I would go dual-core now. But don't settle for the budget chip when you do. The rest of us can wait a while.

/awaits flames

 

[theMan]

nothing is going to be done here unless someone with dual core and single core, high end and low end, does some extemsive benchmarks proving one thing or another, otherwise there will just be argument.

 

[josh609]

Originally posted by: theman
nothing is going to be done here unless someone with dual core and single core, high end and low end, does some extemsive benchmarks proving one thing or another, otherwise there will just be argument.

Somone answer his call! Somone run some benchies!

 

[aka1nas]

What some of you aren't getting is that it isn't something you can benchmark readily. A dual-CPU/dual-core machine will FEEL faster, which can be a bit subjective. A single CPU machine will bog down on some process eventually, and then your computer slows down. Once you use an SMP rig for a bit, it's excruciating to use a single CPU machine as the response time feels so laggy. Even a HT-enabled P4 is a poor substitute for real SMP. HT feels snappier if you are running one or two programs, but if you start to do real multitasking it bogs down like any other single-core CPU.

 

[Avalon]

If your choice is between a 4000+ and an X2 3800+, get the 3800+. Once you're in the $350 price range, there's no point in single core any longer.

Now, if you were on a budget, that would be a different story...but even then, I bet we'd still hear people mechanically screaming "3800+! 3800+!".

Reminds me of the days when the 9800pro was king. A guy would ask for a budget $50 gaming card, and 90% of the posters would reply with "9800pro".

:roll:

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
What some of you aren't getting is that it isn't something you can benchmark readily. A dual-CPU/dual-core machine will FEEL faster, which can be a bit subjective. A single CPU machine will bog down on some process eventually, and then your computer slows down. Once you use an SMP rig for a bit, it's excruciating to use a single CPU machine as the response time feels so laggy. Even a HT-enabled P4 is a poor substitute for real SMP. HT feels snappier if you are running one or two programs, but if you start to do real multitasking it bogs down like any other single-core CPU.

:thumbsup:

The X2 has provided the smoothness I missed from my old AthlonMP days. And without the hassle of another chip and cooler to worry about.

 

[stormont]

I went ahead and got the X2 3800+. I figure with overclocking, I could at least get the extra 200 MHz from the chip that a X2 4600+ offers. At that point, I would have been paying $200 just for the extra 512k of cache if I got the 4600+ and that didn't seem worth it.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Wisey says it.

It is just a matter of "when."

Even the single-core solutions have features still waiting for practical use.

Consider 64-bit or "EM64T" processing. Only the appropriate OS can take full advantage of this right now: much of the existing software is designed to support a market where the average PC user in America is using a Pentium 4 running at between 2.2 and 2.4 Ghz.

My "dual-core" system is budgeted for middle of 2006. I might not even start with a dual-core processor, but rather with a high-overclockable Venice 3000+, opting to change it out for a Manchester or San Diego later. But by then, I might just "go dual-core."

There are equally desirable improvements. The promise of either SLI or simply faster graphics makes "PCI-Express" immediately more preferred over any AGP, yet it has been shown -- for the time being -- that an nVidia 6800 GPU in PCI-E x16 flavor has certain pixel pipelines and shaders "locked," while the AGP version of the 6800 allows for their "unlocking." Most people might want to tap the bus-speed for the newer PCI-E or PCI-X bus, but for what? It may be a boon for video capture cards; it would be great for using various hard-drive controllers. But since most motherboards worth their salt put enough controllers on the motherboard anyway, an SATA-2 RAID controller is not going to be a top priority.

Sure it's a matter of money, and time and money are the immutables of economic thinking. If you want to experiment with over-clocking and cooling solutions, you can do it with last year's computer, anticipating that what you learn can be transferred to this year's technology purchased six months late.

Of course, there's always EBay for your used single-core motherboards, graphics cards and processors. In that case, "time" may be a'wastin' "yo money."

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: aka1nas
What some of you aren't getting is that it isn't something you can benchmark readily. A dual-CPU/dual-core machine will FEEL faster, which can be a bit subjective. A single CPU machine will bog down on some process eventually, and then your computer slows down. Once you use an SMP rig for a bit, it's excruciating to use a single CPU machine as the response time feels so laggy. Even a HT-enabled P4 is a poor substitute for real SMP. HT feels snappier if you are running one or two programs, but if you start to do real multitasking it bogs down like any other single-core CPU.

:thumbsup:

The X2 has provided the smoothness I missed from my old AthlonMP days. And without the hassle of another chip and cooler to worry about.

Yes, exactly ! I wish everbody would stop with the "it can't utilize two core in most software" crap. If you don;t like smoothness, can use two core, then buy one, I don;t care, but don;t say it isn't worth it.

 

[yak8998]

how does true MP match up against dual-core? I'm leaning towards opteron right now, start out w/ a pair of single cores, switch out to dualies later. I would imagine it would be faster w/ each CPU having its own dedicated memory channel, no?

 

[aka1nas]

I have worked on Dual P3 as well as dual AthlonMp machines. The 3800+ X2 feels about the same as far as responsiveness goes - it's faster in general of course. TBH, I don't think I dual Opteron is worth the price premium now over an X2 unless you need the ECC support. The K8 isn't that memory bandwith hungry and dual channel PC3200 seems to feed it fine at current speeds. Also, you have to go up to a somewhat high-end motherboard to get NUMA(each CPU accessing it's own local memory, otherwise memory is attached to CPU 1, and CPU 2 accesses it via Hypertransport).

 

[Markfw]

Yes, I have dual Opterons (got them for the PCI-X) and they don;t seem much faster than the X2's I have, except when I/O tasks are involved. Then you can;t beat a big SCSI array ! I may go quad (dual-dualcores) on the Opteron when they come down in price, and more SMP aware apps are out.

 

[yak8998]

hmmmm. mebbe I'll just go w/ a single dual core opteron and add another later than... =D
i like the idea of dedicated memory for each core, but I guess that if pc3200 can feed the beast, its good enough.
I always forget about I/O. theres no way I'm dropping cash for SCSI...

 

[Pabster]

Ok, you'd drop a fat wad of cash on Opteron but not SCSI? They kind of go hand-in-hand in a server environment (which is Opteron's specialty.)

 

[aka1nas]

If it's just going to be a beefy desktop/workstation, than I would think SATA RAID on the Nforce4 chipset would probably suffice. I am sure that PCI-E SCSI RAID cards are either here or will be soon, so even that isn't a huge issue unless you already money invested in PCI-X hardware..

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
If it's just going to be a beefy desktop/workstation, than I would think SATA RAID on the Nforce4 chipset would probably suffice. I am sure that PCI-E SCSI RAID cards are either here or will be soon, so even that isn't a huge issue unless you already money invested in PCI-X hardware..

raid is absolutely pointless for most consumers. get a 15k cheetah and it will be faster and less hassle.