Quad-core or Dual-core ? Which one do I pick ?

[frisco]

Hi

Great thread but I have a very basic question..

How do I know if an on-line game is multi-threaded or not and if it'll play better with a Quad or if just a Dual-core will do.?

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Just letting you guys know, NBA 2k9, Gears of War, Dirt and Alone in the Dark are all multithreaded.

I see 100% use on both of my cores and i get exactly half the fps when i set a game to only run on 1 core. I'm absolutely sure that with this kind of scaling they are bound to be truly multithreaded.

Now if they would only do this with counterstrike!

 

[perdomot]

I have a Phenom X3 rig and my usual scenario for usage is surfing the web while listening to iTunes and downloading video with Bitcomet at the same time. Only encoding I do is to convert video for watching on iPod. My X3 goes at 2.3 Ghz and I was wondering if an OC'd C2D going at 3.4-3.6 Ghz would be better for how I use my rig.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: perdomot
I have a Phenom X3 rig and my usual scenario for usage is surfing the web while listening to iTunes and downloading video with Bitcomet at the same time. Only encoding I do is to convert video for watching on iPod. My X3 goes at 2.3 Ghz and I was wondering if an OC'd C2D going at 3.4-3.6 Ghz would be better for how I use my rig.

A 3.4-3.6ghz C2D would probably be faster in just about every scenario than your current processor.

 

[perdomot]

Yeah but would it be noticeable is what I'm wondering. For example, I use Videora to convert vids for ipod and I think that uses all three cores so I'm not sure if the C2D at 3.6 could beat it. BTW, I'm not a gamer.

 

[dguy6789]

3.6*2 > 2.3*3. The core 2 is also faster clock for clock, so this is a very conservative comparison. As for the need to upgrade, I don't think it would be worth the money to go to a Core 2 Duo and mainboard from your current processor and mainboard. I believe a lot of current AMD motherboards will support the Phenom 2 that is coming out soon. You should look into a quad core iteration of one of those if you want some improvement without having to change platforms.

 

[perdomot]

I've been thinking about the Phenom II also. The new 790GX mobos with ACC also have caught my eye so that would be a nice combo if pricing is good.

 

[Windbreaker2000]

For those of us who aren't even considering the i7 series due to the price, what would you think gives the best performance per $: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 or the AMD Phenom quad 9850/9950 right now. Don't say that for amd it'll be worth the wait, because christmas is coming, and some of us love real presents under the christmas three

 

[bludragon]

Pretty much any batch processing of images should use as many cores as you can give it.
The typical case is RAW->jpg conversion. I've tried canon's DPP, DxO and bibble for converting from RAW and all will max out 2 cores. Unfortunately I can't test 4...

 

[MChim]

You don't buy either of these CPUs. Spend a little extra for a Core i7 920 system and overclock to 3.8ghz and it will annihilate those chips.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: MChim
You don't buy either of these CPUs. Spend a little extra for a Core i7 920 system and overclock to 3.8ghz and it will annihilate those chips.

Um...No. Per the benchmarks I have seen, a E8400 will beat an I7@3.8 most of the time in many things, and a Q9550 @ 3.6-3.7 will equal it in many that the E8400 can't win due to multi-core software. The I7 does have a few areas where it excels, but its the exception not the rule. It probably will except when the same core hits the server market, but in desktop, it just doesn't wipe out the old generation. Especially for the huge price differencial.

 

[shempf]

I fail to see the huge price diff btw Q9550 & i7
Does it work better with DDR2 or something (rhetorical).

 

[walk2k]

The price difference will be mostly the mainboard and ram. The chips may cost the same but X58 boards and DDR3 are expensive.

X58 boards are $300 and ram is $90-100 (3GB) or $175 for 6GB.
You are going to be out over $400 before you even have a CPU (well over, if you want 6GB or more...)

Good P45 boards are around $100 and DDR2 is $a joke (4GB for under $22 AR rofl).
You could easily put together a smokin C2D setup for under $300.

I only have a dual but I can add these to the "uses 2 cores well" list.
Source - Half-Life 2 (Ep1,2), TF2, Portal, etc.
Enemy Territory Quakewars
Oblivion (probably Fallout 3 too)

 

[shempf]

I see. I assumed one would opt for the DDR3. My logic would be to run more than the 1333MHz FSB.

Hopefully the issues get worked out quick with the i7.....I'd really like one to run multi VM's and to do my encoding, but I'm growing impatient for an upgrade.

 

[dguy6789]

Add GTA4 to the list of games that run better on a Quad than a Dual.

Done
Markfw900
Anandtech Moderator

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: n7

For UT3 & actually most UE3 games, i'd recommend a quad.

lol but the UT3 engine is already optimized out the whazoo. Are you saying we'll be getting 150fps instead of 130fps??? what kind of advice is that? lol gimme a break.

 

[dguy6789]

As stated above, going from a 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo to a 3.4Ghz Core 2 Quad gave me a gigantic performance increase in UT3. I doubt the kind of performance boost I received could come from such a small clock speed increase. The performance boost was useful as well, I was certainly not getting over 60fps in all situations prior to the upgrade, I do now.

 

[buzznut]

On the AMD side, I had a fx-62 clocked to 3.15 ghz. I made the move to quad core and couldn't be happier. I now run a 9850 @ 3.0 ghz and there is no comparison, it is much faster. In games I have smooth frame rates, I play oblivion, bioshock, Heroes 5. Don't have a lot of hard data to throw out there, just feels faster and runs better. 3dmark06 was at just under 11000 with the fx-62. The Quad core gets over 12000 with same 8800gt 512MB.

Also using 1066 ram, so I'm sure that's a factor as well, now I have XP64 and 4 gigs ram as opposed to two. So all of these are factors, but I still think the most significant upgrade was the quad core. As far as xp64 goes, the most significant change (and I was hoping for speed) is that it is rock solid and I don't crash. Most stable OS I have used, except for Linux of course. Occasionally I will have a game lock-up, but that only happens about once a month I'd say.

Right now I don't see a reason not to buy a quad core, unless one wants to save money and oc to the moon. Any of todays quad cores will be plenty fast for the next few years.

 

[ITPaladin]

Add to the gaming list EverQuest II.
They recently added multi-core to it.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

I just upgraded from an e8400 @ 3.6Ghz to a q9300 @ 3.3GHz. One thing I've noticed is that I can have a lot more running in the background and have the system be more forgiving when I am gaming. I encode alot of video through Adobe Premier, and if I set the affinity on it to just the last 2 cores, I can totally sit and play Left4Dead while it's running through, which is awesome, because I'm not just sitting there bored waiting for it to finish.

I lost some raw Mhz on a per core level, but what I gained in flexibility with the system when it comes to multitasking was pretty substantial in my case.

 

[Cogman]

h264 is not multithread in nature. x264 is. The standard says nothing about threading.

 

[idiotekniQues]

Photoshop CS3 uses all 4 cores extensively. Wonderful for converting large files and running filters. I have seen this confirmed.

I will check out Lightroom 2 when i batch-process sometime this week and see what cores are utilized.

 

[apoppin]

i missed this thread

i just got q9550-s spec yesterday .. the low power Quads [65w]

i am going to extensively benchmark it [mostly games - about 15] against my e8600 which is currently at 4.0Ghz
- i think i can also push it higher ... stay tuned .. i am finishing up one video card review now and *should* have results on Monday

i'll post preliminary info here, also
[i have PS, also - but i am concentrating on PC games]

 

[buildingacomputer]

If I run multiple programs none of which can use all 4 cores, will I still benefit from buying quad? Specifically, if I run torrent downloading, convert flac to mp3, and watch avi video simultaneously, will I benefit from quad cpu? None of the programs use all 4 cores, but I run multiple single or dual core programs.
Thanks.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: buildingacomputer
If I run multiple programs none of which can use all 4 cores, will I still benefit from buying quad? Specifically, if I run torrent downloading, convert flac to mp3, and watch avi video simultaneously, will I benefit from quad cpu? None of the programs use all 4 cores, but I run multiple single or dual core programs.
Thanks.

Well, I don't know how much cpu each uses, but very possibly a quad would help.