Dual Core?

[dwdty9]

I like to do media encoding tasks on my computer. Mainly putting video on my ipod. But I don't know if I should go dual core or not. I'd like not to spend the $300 it costs to go dual core on the AMD side, but I don't really trust Intel with anything.

So is it worth the extra dough to go to the dual core?

 

[dwdty9]

oops. wrong place!

 

[SynthDude2001]

What tools/programs are you using to encode? In general, video encoding sees huge boosts from dual-core CPU's - I got an Opteron 170 myself for just that reason (I do a lot of HDTV recording). Since you can get an X2 3800+ or Opteron 165 for around $300 these days, I'd say it's definitely worth it if you do a lot of media encoding (assuming your software makes use of multiple processors).